bound for glory
by wtvoc
Summary: A new fic by jandco & withthevampsofcourse- A ridiculous tale of accidental misdemeanors, felonies, past affairs and six kids on the run from life. Not necessarily realistic, but AH anyway.
1. Chapter 1

**thanks for joining us on a new adventure! second chapter should be up pretty soon. thank you to everyone who's still with us after all this time. -jandco & wtvoc**

"What do you mean…you _can't go_?" I asked slowly into the payphone. The wind blew my hair into my mouth and stuck in my gum. I pulled the wad out and started picking my hairs out with the phone balanced on my shoulder.

"I mean my mother found a condom in my underwear drawer and flipped the hell out and called up Ben's parents and hell is setting up shop in my living room as I speak so I can't really explain anymore, I just barely got permission to use the phone when you called and that's only because my mom thought it'd be rude to not tell you that… _I can't go_." Angela's voice sort of petered out, but she got like that when she was upset- all run-on sentences without pauses and a lot of "and"s. I sighed and just pulled the gum and a few strands of hair out of my head. I stuck it to the side of the liquor store with my thumb, the hair sticking out all crazy-like and gross. I could hear Charlie chiding me about leaving obvious fingerprints at the scene of a crime in the back of my head, but I had more important things on my mind. Like how my summer was just ruined in one long, run-on sentence.

"Angela. You just graduated from high school. She can't ground you for finding a condom—"

"She's paying my college tuition, Bella. She can do anything she wants." There was silence and after a few seconds, I blew my bangs outta my eyes and sighed in frustration.

"Angela."

"Bella. I can't afford to argue with her. I literally cannot afford it. I can't pay the tuition—"

I cut her off before she got on a roll. Being broke was one of our favorite topics of conversation, not to mention something we had bonded over back in the day when Renee simply refused to see reason and buy me an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. "Okay, okay, how bad is it?"

"Remember when Charlie found that note sophomore year that I wrote you asking what it was like to lose your virginity?"

"Yes. He told me I was grounded until my hymen grew back."

Angela laughed softly and I grinned. The laughter was dying in her voice and I could see that "stormy eyebrow" thing she did in my head as she said, "Well, this is at least three times worse than that."

"Angela, I fail to see how she's that shocked that you and Ben—"

"I gotta go, Bella. Sorry."

I hung up the phone in a frustrated huff, uttering a string of "shoot"s and "frickin'"s because Charlie had bet me that I couldn't stop cursing a few weeks back. Initially I had said "fuck that", but then he had scratched his head and wiggled his mustache from side to side which meant that he was in deep thought, and next thing I know I'm signing this piece of yellow paper torn from a legal pad saying "I, Isabella Marie Swan, do solemnly swear to stop swearing. The undersigned, Charles Swan, upon one month of curse word free utterances, will pay Isabella one hundred dollars cash and get the transmission fixed in her car. Signed this day, June 12, 2010." I had argued that I could always lie and say that I didn't curse, but then he had to go and point out that I'm the world's worst liar.

Anyway, I stood there, listening to a big rig barrel down the highway behind me, staring at the shiny 5/10/25 coin slot on the phone. I could see my reflection all weird and distorted and I flicked absent-mindedly at the coin return lever thing, at a total loss for what to do about the busted road trip. Frick.

The graduation road trip that we'd been planning since freshman year… gone. Just like that. Because Angela didn't know how to properly hide a row of Trojans from her magpie mother, who was always intent on finding shiny objects in the chaos, be they roach clips, hash pipes, or other outdated terms for drug paraphernalia. I think she would've forgiven marijuana more easily than her valedictorian daughter having sex with Benjamin Cheney.

How the girl could score perfect attendance and a 4.0 GPA for four consecutive years and not know how to cover up sex tracks baffled me.

I gave the brick wall of the Gas 'N Go a farewell kick and turned into the dark to go home and sulk and lament about the road trip that never was. I adjusted my overstuffed backpack that suddenly seemed to weigh ten pounds more than it did before I spoke to Angela and shoved my hands in my pockets, ready to hoof it back home.

I barely took three steps when the store's alarm started blaring, making my heart jump and then my apparently defective adrenaline kick in. I stood there like a deer in headlights.

The door to the dark Gas 'N Go flew open and Emmett McCarty and Jasper Whitlock came running out, their arms full of what appeared to be Corn Nuts, Twizzlers, Doritos, 151, and cold, hard cash.

"You said it'd be five minutes before it went off!" Jasper shouted to Emmett. A turquoise-blue bag of Corn Nuts fell out of his arms and he bent to pick it up when Emmett stuck his arm out.

"Leave it, leave it! Anyway, it'll be another ten before the police actually show up. Relax," Emmett said, and as he walked by me, a package of Sno Balls fell from his arms and landed near my feet.

"Shit," Jasper muttered under his breath when he saw me.

"If I give you these Sno Balls, will you keep your mouth shut, Swan?" Emmett asked, kicking the Sno Balls in my direction.

"Get in the van, Swan," Jasper said.

"What—" I started, and then I actually noticed the van because Edward Cullen hopped out of the driver's side, a cigarette hanging from his lips. He looked like he'd just shaved but hadn't managed to make it in the shower as his hair was rumpled, and not in a purposeful way. I'm also pretty sure he had been wearing that same white button up shirt to graduation the day before, only now it was all wrinkled and he had a pack of smokes tucked in the front pocket. If memory served, they would be Camel Lights.

He scratched the top of his head, put the cigarette between his fingers and squinted one eye at me. I tried not to notice.

"Get in the van," Jasper said to me again, sounding all annoyed and in a rush. He started tossing his stolen goods in the door that Edward had left open.

"You can't make her get in," Emmett said as I continued to stare at this odd display that didn't actually shock me all that much.

"The police chief's daughter just watched us rip off the Gas 'N Go. We can't leave her here."

"It's _my_ Gas 'N Go, and we can't just… snatch her up. That's kidnapping."

At this point, I was amused but still said nothing.

"She won't spill to Daddy. Leave her here," Edward said, then flicked his cigarette in a puddle beside him. He didn't even do me the courtesy of looking at me with a smirk or something so that I could get properly pissed off at him, which _really_ pissed me off.

You know what? He was always pissing me off.

I walked to the van, sure to swipe Edward with my shoulder on my way.

"It's not kidnapping if I'm willing to go," I said flatly.

"No way," Emmett said.

"You leave me here, I'll tell Charlie everything I saw."

"Two more minutes," Jasper said, climbing in the passenger side of the van.

"One. Charlie ate dinner at the diner. He won't be coming from the station," I said.

Edward stared me in the eye while he took one step backward then reached for the sliding door on the van. He yanked it open, and the groaning from the rusting door almost made me hesitate. I watched a piece of white car paint flake off and float to the gravel road.

"Well? Your chariot," Edward said dryly, and gestured to the open door.

"Thank you," I said and hopped in the back.

He slammed the door shut, but I was pretty sure I heard him swear under his breath just before the door closed.

The back of the van smelled like boys' tennis shoes, cigarettes, and old food. I kicked a half empty Gatorade bottle away from my feet and swiped an empty Coors can from the seat before I sat down. There was the one bench, but the other seats in the back of the van seemed to have been removed, leaving the back wide open. There was a futon mattress leaning against the side of the van, stuck there with several long pieces of duct tape. The weird thing is that the futon looked brand new- which didn't match the rest of the Chester van- except for an ominous dark stain in the upper right-hand corner. I didn't wanna know. I also saw a few duffel bags, one maroon with the "Forks Spartans" logo on the side and McCARTY written in Sharpie on all sides. I primly set my backpack on the floor next to me, then quickly wound my calf through one of the straps. I didn't want it to roll off and land in… something questionable.

Emmett somehow hulked his big body right over the seat and landed with a thud in the very back of the van, but he didn't sit on the mattress. He just plunked down on the van's carpet, which sort of looked like it had been ripped from Grandpa Swan's "Rec Room". He then pulled out a rolled-up copy of _Asian Fever_ from inside his track jacket and opened it. I wasn't sure if he was doing it to irritate me or if he was genuinely looking at it. I turned to see Jasper pulling himself in the van and flopping down on the bench seat beside me. Edward peeled out of the lot before Jasper even finished rolling the door shut. Jasper patted me on the head and then used it to give himself a boost as he climbed up front.

"Why didn't you just get in that way?" I grumbled under my breath.

"Lock's jammed," Emmett said without looking up from his skin mag.

"So, why'd you just rob your dad's gas station?" I asked, turning around to face Emmett.

His head popped up from behind the magazine and he actually tsk'ed me.

"I didn't _rob_ anything. It'll all be mine someday anyway, I just took it early."

"I don't know if either of our fathers would agree with that logic," I said.

"Where am I unloading you?" Edward asked me from the driver's seat. "We need to get the hell out of Forks, now." I turned back around and stared at him in the rear view mirror.

"You're not unloading me."

Not again.

"Pick _now_, Swan, or I'll leave you on the side of the road."

"Then I'll report you for kidnapping. Not to mention that whole Gas 'N Go debacle."

"You can't stay with us. We're not going back, and we can't have the police chief's daughter missing with us," Jasper said.

"Charlie doesn't expect me home for a month. I'm supposed to be road tripping with Angela, and by the time he figures out Angela isn't road tripping, we'll be wherever it is that we're going," I said.

"_We_ aren't going anywhere—"

"I think she should stay," Emmett interrupted. I turned around again and he winked at me without looking up. He licked his thumb and used it to turn the page and I faced front yet again.

"Sure. She can make the sandwiches," Jasper said, then turned in his seat to wink at me. What's with all the winking?

I flipped him the double bird and gazed out to the black forest-y treeline whizzing by. Hand gestures didn't count, Charlie.

"Whatever," Edward sighed and turned up the crappy stereo as loud as it would go. It sounded like Foghat, but it could've been K-Ci & JoJo for all I knew. He fiddled with the knobs on the ancient radio and I stared at his hand. He was wearing a braided leather bracelet tied around his wrist, the kind you find at the swap meet. I tried to think if that was like a thing now, but I couldn't recall anyone else wearing one and wondered what it was for as he didn't seem like the man jewelry type. I also couldn't picture anyone giving it to him to wear, because, like… Edward Cullen didn't "go" with any girls.

I used to think Edward was tall, shy and sweet. And incredibly hot.

He had a knack for being silent. For awhile, like I said, I thought he was shy. Then I was pretty sure he was some kind of tortured brooder.

Now, of course, I knew it was neither of those.

He's just a world class asshole.

This information would've been incredibly useful the summer between sophomore and junior year.

"How much did you get in cash for graduation, Swan?" Emmett asked. I sort of turned and gave him the side-eye.

"Not as much as the Gas 'N Go heir of Forks. Why?"

Emmett thrust a ratty old Chicago Cubs baseball cap that I'd recognize from anywhere under my nose. It was Edward's and it was filled with cash- some new, some so old it looked counterfeit.

"Well, let's have it," Emmett said.

"Forget it," I said and pushed the hat away.

"Listen, either you're in or you're out. We all pooled in everything we had for a seat in this van. If you're along for the ride, you're an equal partner. This ain't no date night."

Jasper turned in his seat with a Twizzler hanging from his lips.

"Chivalry is dead, honey. Ass, gas, or grass," Jasper said.

Emmett chimed in with, "No one rides for free. So pony up."

"Fine. But my money doesn't go toward _Hustler_ mags and shitty malt liquor," I said, unzipping my backpack.

"Fine. Bella buys the _Busty Beavers_ and Boone's," Emmett announced.

I sneered and dropped my ten twenty dollar bills in the hat. "Boone's Strawberry Hill, then?"

"Fuck that. Sun Peak Peach. And where's the rest of it?" he demanded, shaking the hat in front of my face. I could smell the inky odor of fresh bills and a faint trace of Head and Shoulders and sweat.

"That's all?" Emmett asked, squinting into the hat and rattling it. I reached into my pocket and tossed a couple nickels and a penny into the hat.

"Now that's it," I snapped defensively. "Charlie doesn't have much and Renee is… Renee, okay?"

"Yeah, but now we have to pay for your ass—" Jasper started and then the radio stopped abruptly.

"It's fine," Edward sighed.

I resisted the urge to kick the back of his seat.

I also resisted the urge to kick the back of his head, the front of his face, his junk, his shins and everything else I've been resisting kicking since the summer between sophomore and junior year.

Since Edward and I were an officially done as an unofficial item.

Since the time I told him my period was late and he hunched over my bathroom sink holding a flimsy cardboard box in his hand and even though the test was negative he stopped coming in my window and calling me back and started avoiding me behind the 7-11 where everybody always met up.

Since he made me cry and then got into an actual fist fight with my father that was never spoken about before or after said fight.

You know.

Since I started despising him.

We had to stop after only twenty minutes thanks to Emmett's grandma bladder. Edward pulled over on the shoulder of a dark road and Jasper hopped out of the passenger side to open the double back doors so Emmett could roll out.

I took the opportunity to clear something up with Edward. I unbuckled and leaned forward, using the two front seats to brace myself and regretting it instantly as there was something sticky on the perforated white leather. I closed my eyes and swallowed twice before starting.

"You don't have to pay my way, or whatever. About earlier. So, don't think you're going to—"

I saw his hand go up to rub his eyes, this thing that he does, and then he looked over his shoulder at me and this slow, lazy, terrible smile just kind of spread on his face. I could barely see his eyes in the dark, but I saw that smile.

"Well. Of course not. That would make you my whore, wouldn't it?"

That's when I stopped resisting the urge to kick.

He twisted in the seat faster than I would've thought him capable of and caught my ankle before my third kick made contact.

"Act like a lady, Bella," he said, then let my ankle go, turned back around and turned the music up.

xxxxx

"What is that smell?" I groaned, face down in my back pack.

"Man smell, Princess. Don't worry about it. Go back to sleeping," Emmett said from the back. I opened one eye and turned my head enough to see Emmett's big bear paw of a bare foot dangling over the seat, just above my head.

"Get your foot out of my face—"

"Uh. I was the one who insisted you could join us. Shut up and don't make waves, Bella."

"I paid. Move your foot." I would've poked it, but ew.

"I want it noted," Jasper sniffed, "that we didn't have these kinds of problems with just the three of us." I take back that time junior year when I told you the ending to _Grapes of Wrath_ right before class started, you dick.

"I want it noted that you and Captain Cool up there don't have this stinky hippopotamus foot in _your_ faces, and maybe if you _did,_ you'd understand my bi- my complaining," I amended. I sat up and shoved the hair sticking to the drool on my face away. "Let's establish a few things right now. I am _not_ going to be the tagalong chick here. I am _not_ going to be overridden—"

"Nah. Just get ridden. Edward. You. I seem to recall a few summers ago—" I grabbed that half-full Gatorade bottle where it was half-rolling and tossed it over my shoulder, satisfied with the "oof" I got from Emmett.

"I won't be a pain in your asses, so I expect all of you to not to be a pain in my ass," I continued as though Emmett hadn't said anything at all. "Where are we going, anyway?"

Jasper turned around and tossed me a warm can of Mountain Dew.

"This van, Bella, is bound for glory."


	2. Chapter 2

**hey, thanks for the lovin'! we're glad you're still here after all this time. good to see some familiar faces in the reviews! some of you asked if this is a comedy. some asked if it's angsty. the answer to both questions is yes.**

I didn't know what state we were in when we pulled up at some twenty-four hour diner around 3 am, but I was certain that the whole "No Shoes, No Shirt" rule wasn't in effect there.

The van pulled up next to a huge, idling truck. I was the first to jump out; I knew that I stank of boys and Doritos and probably stale cigarettes even if I'd gotten used to it, but the thought that we had now been driving for hours and hours (or days? It felt like days) in boy stink was killing me psychologically. I had to get out of the darned van. I heaved the door open and the second I jumped out, I kind of wanted to jump back in. Wherever it was that we were it was hot, dry, and windy. At 3 am. It reeked of diesel, cow crap, and cigarette smoke. I was suddenly appreciative of the very rainy and very green upbringing I had experienced in Washington.

Edward pulled the keys from the ignition and hopped out. He walked directly into the restaurant, not bothering to wait for anyone or to even hold the darn door. I headed in after him while Jasper opened up the back for Emmett.

We sat in a booth with ripped-up vinyl seats and something encrusted on the brown Formica tabletop. Jasper scanned a menu next to me and Emmett stacked the creamers next to Edward. He then wiped the table by pulling his sleeve over his hand and scrubbing vigorously. I watched, curious but not asking, as he leaned over and wiped in front of Jasper, who simply lifted his menu without saying a word. Emmett then turned around and grabbed the sugar container from the empty booth behind him and removed all the white "Real Sugar" packets. Curiosity got the better of me.

"What-"

"Sugars," Emmett said, like it was a "duh" kind of situation. Jasper put his menu down, grabbed a sugar packet and, holding it between two fingers, flipped it toward Emmett. It skidded across the table and landed a couple of inches from the edge.

"Tsk. You're rusty, McQueen."

"Shut up and go."

Emmett picked up the sugar and tossed it; it fell into Jasper's lap. Jasper picked it up and tossed it back. I watched, fascinated and unsure why, torn between the odd sugar flipping and deciding on Eggs Benedict or a Patty Melt. Finally, Emmett's toss skid across the table and it almost fell but didn't, it just barely peeked out over the edge. Emmett grinned in triumph and Jasper hung his head down.

"Take it like a man, Whitlock." Jasper sat up straight and ripped the package open; I watched in horror as he downed the entire packet in one gulp. He grimaced and swiped at his mouth, then picked up another sugar packet, tossing it toward Emmett. Oh, God. I turned to Edward to see what he made of this, but he had leaned back and closed his eyes, his fingertips massaging circles into his temples.

"I'm getting waffles," Emmett announced as he neatly flipped a packet and it again landed without falling off the edge. Jasper took the sugar shot as Emmett grabbed his menu. "Oh, look, Edward. Cherry pie. Edward loves cherry pie, right, Bella?"

Edward's eyes popped open and he looked me straight in the face. The left corner of his mouth raised in a smile that I'm sure wasn't intended to be friendly.

"Cherry pie," Edward said, "can be fantastic." It took everything I had, but I didn't look away in embarrassment. Instead, I sneered at him. I figured my nostrils were flaring or something because he looked away for a half a second and returned his gaze to my face, but I had moved on. I unrolled my silverware and neatly lined the utensils to my right- fork, knife, spoon- ignoring that the table probably hadn't been wiped down since the Eisenhower Administration. I primly smoothed the paper napkin across my thighs and removed my trusty old brown claw clip from the hem of my shirt, piling my hair on top of my head and viciously trying to claw it in place.

"Let's just get this out of the way right now," I said, my arms above my head, struggling to secure my hair. "I lost my virginity to Edward, so we needn't continue to imply what everyone already knows to be true with sadly executed jokes and 1990s-era dessert references. Okay? We did the sex. All over town. Emmett, I had sex on your bed three times without your knowledge, once while your Mom was watching Oprah in the next room. Awesome plaid flannel sheets, by the way. I'd consider taking down the Matchbox Twenty poster, though. That's just embarrassing. Anyway, despite whatever Edward has told the two of you, I wasn't just his lay and laugh. He _confided_ in me. He told me about his mother's mental break and about how he's closer to his grandfather than anyone else in the world— then again, he had also told me that he felt closer to me than to any other girl, and we all know how that turned out. I know he meant this crap back then because once, he actually had to wipe his eye and he didn't even get laid as a result. So, yeah, you two know he made me cry for two weeks straight, and now you know how he cried, too. Any questions?"

"Why'd you get in a fight with her dad?" Jasper asked. Neither he nor Emmett had been looking at me during my calm tirade; they had been facing each other but side-eyeing Edward. He was busy folding his napkin into a rose, and he looked up at Jasper's question.

"Chief 'Stache was giving me shit for noise pollution, so I turned my radio down and complimented his daughter," Edward said. "And I got out of the ticket because Papa Swan can't rough up a kid and then report it."

"You're a dick," I said, scowling more at my father than at Edward.

"You're beautiful, baby," Edward said flatly, then flipped the mug in front of him over as the waitress sidled up, pointing at it and handing her the rose with a smile.

Jasper got up to take a leak and Emmett ordered his waffles.

I asked for a Coke and fries, the thought of Hollandaise or cheese now completely gross to me, and I was completely aware that Edward was looking at me the whole time.

The waitress squeaked off in her orthopedic shoes and Edward leaned forward. He grabbed my wrist for a second, just long enough so that my eyes would snap to his, which they did.

"You liked seeing me cry?" he asked, and his voice was… flat and cold.

"Did you like making me cry?" I retorted, my tone hot and filling my face with prickles of warmth.

"Remember when I used to make you co—"

"Remember the time I skipped a period and it turned out I wasn't pregnant and you completely freaking dropped me like I was a defective, gonorrhea-infested leper? Do you remember _that_ good time?" I asked, a phony smile spread across my face, my voice enthusiastic.

He smiled widely and sat back in the booth. Emmett was pretending to inspect his nail beds while whistling "Bridge on the River Kwai".

"You kill me, Bella."

"That I could I would, Lover."

He flipped me off quickly and thanked the waitress for his coffee, winking cheekily as she set it in front of him.

Jasper came back to the table in what proved to be a curious situation. He had his arm around a short wisp of a girl with dark, chopped-up hair, a smoke between her lips and sunglasses on, despite the fact that it was the middle of the night. She kinda reminded me of Winona in _Girl, Interrupted_ what with her pale face, dark hair, and grey cut-off sweatshirt. She even had black cheap slip-on canvas sneakers with a white bumper, the kind you find in a chain drugstore for five bucks.

"Oh, hello Jasper and company," Emmett said. He was still inspecting his nails. Jasper pulled Winona in closer and smiled down at her.

"Gentlemen," he said. "This is Alice. We met over by the dessert cooler. I've never seen anyone snake a slice of pie with such proficiency."

"Hi, Alice," I smiled at her.

"Jasper," she said, and smiled back. The cigarette fell from her lips and did a sort of flip down the table, landing in front of Edward. He picked it up and stuck it behind his ear. At the same time, Jasper smoothly reached into Edward's pocket and pulled out his soft pack, shaking another one loose. He gently put it between Alice's lips, and she looked up and smiled adoringly at him. She had a small chip in her front tooth, but it made her seem cuter.

"I'm Bella," I said. She turned her head back to me and smiled, pulling the cigarette from her lips with two fingers in a V. She pointed it at me.

"Jasper."

There was a confused two seconds of silence in which I stared at the cigarette and Edward and Emmett stared at Jasper. Finally shaking his head, Emmett tossed a sugar at Jasper's face.

"What the hell?" he asked.

"No clue," Jasper said, and slid in next to me, forcing me to the wall. He brought Alice in the same movement so that she now sat next to me, and I sort of inched over more without meaning to. I couldn't help it. "I told her I was Jasper, she repeated it, and that's… all she's said since. But I think she likes me." He looked at her fondly and she tapped her smoke on the table.

"Well, she said her name was Alice," I said, still smiling at the girl, trying to talk without moving my lips. Like maybe she couldn't hear me or something if I did it that way.

"Not really. I said I'd call her Alice. She didn't protest."

"Jasper, this is—"

"Jasper," Alice said, and she used one hand to cup his face. She patted it twice. "Jasper."

"Habla espanol?" Emmett asked Alice.

"Jasper?" she asked back.

Edward stared down at Alice and shrugged. The others seemed to accept that as some sort of tacit approval, like if Edward said it was cool then it was cool, and I realized that it was the same way that I had come to join the gang. Great. Awesome.

"Are you hungry, Alice?" Jasper asked her.

"Hmm. Jasper." It was sort of amazing how many different emotions can be conveyed with the same word. She actually sounded hungry.

"Okay. Onion rings," Jasper said, and Alice seemed content with that.

I looked around the table for some kind of logic or an understanding communicative glance, but there was none. They had all already moved on.

Fantastic.

By the time we all ate and peed, the sun was coming up and Emmett declared he'd drive. Edward had dark circles under his eyes and heavy lids, so he didn't protest.

Edward opened the sliding door to the van and immediately sprawled out on the entire bench seat, using my backpack as a pillow.

Jasper opened the back doors and started to hoist Maybe Alice in.

"Jasper… are you serious right now?" I whispered.

"You want to go, right?" Jasper asked, somewhat dubiously, to Alice.

"Jasper," she said and kissed his cheek before launching herself into the back of the van.

"Shut those doors behind me, Bella. Thanks, you're a peach."

I slammed the doors shut behind him and climbed in the passenger seat next to Emmett, and that's pretty much how we picked up Alice.


	3. Chapter 3

**we're loving the reviews! thank you everyone, for keeping with us. in case we don't say it later, merry christmas! **

**jasper?**

Chapter 3

"Oh! Oh! I'll be all of Aerosmith, you be Run DMC," Emmett ordered me as he turned the radio up. It was really odd how sitting in the back gave you garbled noise, but when you were up front, the radio sounded okay. Not like… _good_ or anything, but you know. Listenable. Emmett had this odd radio-induced ADD, so he kept fiddling with the tuner knob (the van was so old that it didn't even have preset radio dials, for chrissakes), trying to find the perfect song. It stopped being funny after about ten minutes, how often you hear Taylor Swift when you're in the middle of nowhere, but whatever. I vowed to buy the first cassette I saw in a gas station for variety (oh my god, do they even still make cassette tapes?), but since Emmett kept insisting I "rest my weary feet", I hadn't even been inside one yet.

Anyway, he kept going between these two stations in the low number area, adamant that he'd heard some 80s hip hop anthems playing, but all I kept hearing was ranchero music. Then, just as Not Alice's giggling from the back was starting to get louder… jackpot. Steven Tyler and the Reverend Run. In celebration, I hit the recline lever on the right of the chair and sort of flew backward while Emmett laughed and Edward's foot kicked out at my headrest, so I quickly sat up and acted like it hadn't happened.

I rolled down the window and rested my elbow on it, then rested my bare feet on the dash, right over something sticky, but couldn't be bothered by that. It had turned out to be a beautiful day. Wherever we were, it was warm and the sky was blue and the windows were down and Emmett was an excellent road trip partner.

Despite kicking my head, Edward had been out cold since he lay his head down. The radio turned up, all of the laughter from the front, and all of the "Jasper" from the back had probably been providing some decent white noise for him. Poor baby. Being an A-Class Jerk must've been tiring.

Since Emmett had started driving, he had at first angered and then amused me with the way he drove. Driver Edward, you could tell, had an idea of where he wanted to go, and if he didn't, he was good at hiding it. He did things purposefully and he wasn't careless; I remembered that much from forever ago. Driver Emmett, on the other hand, was into what he called "the Roshambo Zen Way" of doing things. I didn't wanna know, but he explained it to me as we zoomed away from the gas station earlier that morning.

"Two drops in a bucket, motherfuckit."

"Eh?"

"Neither the hind end of a rat nor a defecation was provided."

"Emmett-"

"Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. What's this got to do with paper rock scissors?"

"Everything, Bella. Everything." He tapped the horn in time to "everything" and smiled beatifically at me. "I realized during finals this past year that shit didn't really matter. I didn't get into college because I worked my ass off- which, believe me, I did- I got into college because I can throw a ball long and I can throw a ball accurately, which is just something I was born with, not something I _did_. We're all of us victims of chance, Bellerino. So why stress over shitty decisions that mean not much? Just go with it. Go-o-o-o-o with it. Left, right. Don't matter much. Just pick."

I sat on that for three seconds, annoyed that Emmett was making way too much sense to me. I blamed the fries from the greasy spoon.

"No. Seriously, Swan. Pick. Left or right. Left or right! We're gonna hit that sign, left or right!" I looked in horror as Emmett faked a freak out, but inside I really _was_ freaking out. The road was ending ahead, a big "Not a Through Street" sign all yellow and obvious.

"Left, Emmett, God. Freaking left! Don't do that! Sheesh." My heart was pounding, my hand was on my chest, and I had my eyes closed. I heard a low, sleepy laugh from right behind me.

"You know, in all our times together_, I_ never once almost killed you," Edward said in a raspy voice, then I heard him slump back down and not even a minute later, he was snoring. Walk this way, indeed.

"On or off? On or off? On or off, Swan! Pick!" Emmett would shout whenever we approached a juncture. Sometimes I'd flip a quarter I had rescued from the ashtray to decide, and sometimes I'd just randomly pick. I liked not knowing where we were headed. Angela would've killed Emmett; I laughed to myself, remember her carefully detailed itinerary that was sitting in my Yahoo! account somewhere in the internet ether. Then I would laugh a little more, realizing that I hadn't missed having internet access. I didn't have one of Emmett or Edward's fancy smart phones; Charlie never saw the need, and I wasn't going to waste my carefully saved money babysitting Mrs. Cope's a-hole of a twelve-year-old so that I could tweet or twit or whatever that it was I was doing at any given moment. Actually, I had tried to steal Emmett's phone out of his butt pocket back at the last rest stop so that I could check my bank balance, but he called me out for trying to touch his "special places" very loudly, and I had kicked his shin and stomped back to the van. Whatever. Who needs 3G, right?

So before Emmett had taken the wheel, he declared that I was going to be the Chewbacca to his Han Solo. I had asked what my responsibilities would be (despite Emmett insisting that I do my best Wookie impersonation).

"Standard shotgun duties, Swan, durr. Karaoke emcee-ing, obviously. Unwrapping of Hostess delights. And navigation."

"Ooh, is there a map?" Stupidly, I popped open the glove box, assuming there'd be a Thomas Guide next to the registration and insurance information. Nope; the thing was full of condoms, a set of walkie talkies, and a can of EZ-Cheese.

"Map? Please. Oh, fuck yeah, there she is!" Emmett said, reaching over and grabbing the processed cheese product and popping the cap off with one thumb. He squirted a disgusting glob of yellow into his mouth and sloshed it around with his tongue. He offered me the can and I declined with a furious shake of my head. After a second or two of my disgust face, Emmett looked at me and patted my head, saying, "Silly Swan. We don't need no stinking map; that's what _you're_ for."

I couldn't even process this; growing up with Charlie, there had always been a map, because "prior planning prevents piss poor performance". Apparently, Emmett was unconcerned with the quality of his performance. At any rate, we had been driving for hours, sometimes getting on the highway, sometimes driving up what I'm sure was private property.

"Oh, jeez, shit, no off, no off— on. On! Stay on," I shouted. Off seemed to be leading directly to a seedy-looking hotel where people went to get serial killed. Ben and his hetero life partner Eric Yorkie had dragged me and Angela to way too many horror movies for me to ever dare staying at a strange and lonely motel on the side of the road, no matter how big Emmett's "cojones" were ("And they're big. Ask Edward."). I might be dumb enough to join three over-privileged future frat boys on a real-life "Unrated: Extreme Road Rash Edition" driving adventure, but I wasn't walking into some dingy lobby with a hillbilly behind a counter looking up questionable porn while his brother was tying dead squirrels or something to the ceiling and videotaping himself… never mind. I wanted to stay on the road, thank you.

"Nice choice," Emmett said, continuing along the highway.

We stopped for gas and Emmett made a trip in, coming out some seven minutes later with an armload of food and drink and a few packs of cigarettes, all of which he tossed in the back. He peeled the twisty cap thing off a jug of milk and swigged half of the thing in one long gulp. Wiping his arm across his flannel sleeve, he let out a burp and said, "Jasper, you're up."

With the changing of the driver came the changing of the navigator, so Edward took shotgun, Emmett slept in the back and Maybe Alice and I took the backseat.

I watched as she dug through her humongous leopard print purse with red piping and pulled out a bottle of bright orange Wet 'n Wild nail polish.

"Jasper?" she said to me, holding it up. Were those sparkles? Gross. I shook my head.

"Jasper's driving?" I tried. Was she really gonna keep this "Jasper" for words thing the entire trip?

"Jasper," she said this time, nodding solemnly and holding up another polish, this one red, no sparkles. I shrugged.

She crossed her legs and patted her lap, gesturing for me to put my hands on her thighs. With a sigh I turned to face her, placing my palms on the faded denim cut-offs she had pulled out of her bag earlier in the day. She opened up the bottle of polish and began to roll it between her palms. Weren't you supposed to shake those things to like, mix the oil from the paint or whatever? I didn't know, honestly. I was a colored nail polish virgin; I had started using clear polish to cover up the gross, uneven spots a year before when Jessica Stanley and her jerk friend Lauren Mallory had called me an unflattering word synonymous with butch lesbians, but I hadn't ventured into OPI territory yet. The prospect frightened me, to be perfectly honest, and it's not like I could confide in my father and ask him for advice on how to be girly. I knew if I'd asked my mother that she would've just showed up one day and taken me to some spa or something, so that was out. So yeah- I hadn't painted my nails since like, the sixth grade when slumber parties were all the rage, along with crank calling boys and putting people's hands in warm water while they slept.

I watched with fascination as Maybe Alice continued to roll the little bottle between her palms. Was she warming it up? Did it need to be warm? I must've looked confused because she smiled at me, a nice little smile, and she shook the bottle like I would've but then wagged her finger "no" at me. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled back, still confused. She put the bottle in the crook of her bent knee and picked up one of my hands; wrinkling her nose, she stuck her other hand in her bag without looking and pulled out a purple, sparkly-looking wallet thing that turned out to be a grooming kit. Great. What else was in that bag of hers?

I heard the engine attempt to turn over and fail, followed by a string of beautiful curse words from Jasper. After a few more failed attempts, the van finally sputtered to life and Jasper whooped; I looked up to see him palming the steering wheel into a circle and backing the van out of the dirt parking lot and back onto the road. Off we went again, toward… wherever.

"Jasper," Maybe Alice said fondly, then turned her attention back to my hands. Clucking her tongue, she pulled out a small bottle of fruity-looking lotion from her bottomless suitcase of a purse and squeezed some onto the back of my hand. I was going to protest because that just seemed so… intimate, but then _oh_. Man, that felt good. She massaged my hands. The girl was giving me a hand massage! And it felt like bliss. I closed my eyes and listened to Edward and Jasper arguing over music I couldn't make out, sort of snoozing while Maybe Alice pressed her little fingers into my palms and massaged my cuticles.

"Texas!" Jasper shouted, making my eyes shoot open in time to see him punch Edward in the arm. License plate game, maybe? I thought you punched for slug bugs.

"I think we're _in_ Texas, douche," Edward mumbled, but he stared straight ahead and clenched his jaw; I watched as the muscle in his cheek worked up and down, up and down in time to Maybe Alice's rubbing. After what seemed like hours the massage stopped and she picked up one of the medieval torture device-looking instruments, which I immediately realized was a cuticle clipper. Maybe Alice attacked my gross extra dry skin pieces and within minutes produced a much neater version of Bella's hands. Huh. Perhaps there was something to this girlie business after all.

"Jasper," M. Alice said to me, then picked up the bottle of red. I nodded assent, and she unscrewed the cap. This time I purposefully gave her my hand and with a smile at me, she started painting my nails.

About halfway through, she whispered, "Jasper," and flicked her eyes to the passenger seat.

"That's Edward," I said.

She rolled her eyes, pointed at me with the nail polish wand, then back to Edward, lifting her sunglasses to her head and repeating "Jasper" again. Oddly, I caught her meaning.

"Kind of," I whispered. "We used to be." I felt a burn in my face but kept eye contact with her. Alice nodded knowingly and resumed painting my nails.

"Well. It's just so awkward and so not at all awkward at the same time because we used to be together but we were really actually friends, too. Like, best friends I think. Does that make sense?"

"Jasper."

I was doing my best to keep my voice down, and since the boys up front were still busy arguing over the radio, I was pretty sure I was clear. "We've gone to school together since the elementary years and kind of always had the same circle of friends. He's been my friend forever… then we got together, like, physically? And it wasn't just like…hooking up. I mean, we were already friends, so, then we were like best friends and I know him really well, or at least I did. And he knew me really well and we had a really fun time and…"

"Jasper."

"I did love him."

"Jasper," M. Alice said again, narrowing her eyes at me.

"Fine. A part of me will always love him," I whispered. Not Alice nodded her head toward Edward.

"Nah. I think he's totally over it." Not Alice shook her head and laughed.

I decided I really liked her.

She finished with a flourish and screwed the cap back on, gingerly blowing on my fingertips. I held one of my hands up and decided I liked the effect. Hey, look at that. Bella's a girl, after all.

Awhile later, I was digging for my second bag of Funions when Emmett's head popped up from the backseat. We hadn't heard from him since the changing of the guard (driver), and as a consequence we'd all been enjoying the respite from road rage, games of "I Spy" and commentaries on the cup sizes of all female celebrities since Veronica Lake. Not to mention roshambo driving.

"Halt! Right now! Stop!" Emmett had popped up behind me and was hanging his arms over us, one across M. Alice's shoulders, one across mine (with a hand resting on my right boob).

"I can't stop," Jasper called back, exasperated. "I'm on the—"

"Stop this van right now or so help me God, I will spoon your eyes out in your sleep, Whitlock," Emmett demanded, quite menacingly, from right next to my ear. I tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but it's not like I had anywhere to go. Edward flipped around just in time to see Emmett squeeze my boob and sneered, turning back around. I would've clawed him, but I didn't want to ruin my new Girl Bella fingers, so I settled with licking his face.

"You wish, Red," he said, kissing my temple, but letting go of the boob. "Seriously, Jasper. Please. Stop." Something about the soft tone of Emmett's voice made us all look at him, and Jasper immediately pulled over to the side of the road with a lurching halt.

"You got the runs or something?" Jasper asked, taking off his seat belt and twisting around to face Emmett.

But Emmett didn't answer.

He was too busy staring up at a roadside billboard, his expression one of gentle awe.

I looked up at the billboard and saw a leggy blonde in a bikini. She was leering at us, crawling like she was Tawny Kitaen and the sign was the top of a Trans Am. I have a knee-jerk hate reaction to most leggy blondes in bikinis, but this one looked like she'd eat my face if I so much as made one snide comment to her. I squinted and leaned toward the dirty window, putting my hand up to shade the blaring sun from my eyes. I could barely make out the script that was angled over the blonde's teased hairdo.

_Midnight Sun_

_Gentlemen's Club _

_Tuesdays: Private Dances Half Off_

_Exit 218_

_Left at Main, after Whataburger_

"Get off at exit 218," Emmett whispered, still staring at the billboard.

"Fuck that, Emmett. We're not stopping." This from Edward.

"Get off. Exit. 218."

"That chick won't even be in there, it's an ad—" Jasper was wheedling, but half-heartedly, like he knew how ineffective logic would be in this case.

"218, motherfucker!" Emmett's face reminded me of one of the obstinate Swan cousins I had tried to play Barbies with once at some family gathering when I was a kid. She wouldn't let me be blonde Barbie because I didn't have blonde hair and had set her jaw with a firm "nuh uh." Is that why I distrusted blonde people?

"Okay. Jeez," Jasper muttered, putting his seatbelt back on.

"Jasper," M. Alice said, and reached forward to put a hand on Jasper's shoulder.

"You're serious," I said to Emmett- not a question, more like a statement.

"Watch me marry that girl, Bella. Just watch."

I contemplated it for half a second, then decided it was entirely possible. Twenty four hours ago, I never would've dreamed I'd be in the middle of who knows where with a Not Alice and Edward Cullen, of all people.

"You heard the man, Jasper. Exit 218." Emmett patted my head this time and kissed Alice's cheek. She beamed and poked him in the chest, turning to me and nodding.

Midnight Sun it was.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Twenty minutes later, the rusty van pulled up at Midnight Sun… which wasn't nearly as glamorous as the not-so-glamorous sign made it seem. It was in the same strip mall as the Whataburger, which seemed to be a rip-off of some burger chain place, both establishments stand-alone buildings with a row of dingy businesses for a backdrop. What the heck did a Notary Public do, anyway? Jasper pulled into the partially empty parking lot (apparently, not everyone out here, wherever here was, didn't have day jobs) and parked in between two vans as questionable as ours was.

Emmett was getting up to leave before Jasper had the van in park. He picked up the money hat and was rummaging around in it, rattling change while pulling out every single we had. His mean look and the set of his jaw dared anyone to tell him not to take the bills.

Wherever we were it was hot and the sun was blazing, so I ditched my hooded sweatshirt and opted for just my tank top and jeans. I ran my tongue over my teeth and regretted not brushing them back at the last stop. I chuckled because what, I didn't want the strippers to judge me for my bad oral hygiene?

Jasper and Not Alice held hands and ambled up to the entrance while Emmett licked his palm and attempted to calm his hair. Edward got out of the van, still bleary-eyed and little bit grumpy. I pretended not to notice that as he stretched his arms up high, his shirt rode up and revealed a strip of happy trail that I distinctly remembered tickling many, many times. You know, back when I was permitted to do such things. He scratched the top of his head before shoving his hands in his pockets. I wondered if he was trying to preemptively tame his wood or something.

As we were walking toward the entrance (that had a ridiculous bright purple awning over a purple carpet), Not Alice abruptly turned around and looked at me, raising one eyebrow.

"Jasper?" she asked, but gestured to her boobs.

"Yeah. Strippers," I said. I was _really_ starting to get the hang of this "Jasper" thing.

Not Alice shrugged and grinned at me before facing forward again, giggling at something Jasper whispered in her ear.

The inside of the strip joint was like midnight in contrast to the bright day outside. Emmett immediately left the group and rushed off to the front of the flimsy catwalk, right next to three other sketchy suspects who were also at the stage. I expected at least one of them to turn into that wolf guy from all those Looney Tunes cartoons, whistling and jaw dropping and eyeballs literally zooming out of their skulls.

I didn't even see a single stripper up there yet. In fact, I didn't see anyone in the place, aside from a run-down cougar-looking broad behind the bar and Emmett's new pals. No one even ID'd us at the door.

Not Alice had Jasper pushed up against the wood panel wall and Edward plunked himself down at the bar and ordered a scotch and water, like he was thirty-five and did this every day. What the hell, I took the stool next to him and tried to ignore the sticky wood as I rested my arms on the wood bar counter. How could Jasper stand touching the walls in this place? Maybe it was a guy thing, being nonplussed about sticky surfaces in a strip joint.

"You got a smoke, honey?" the cougar asked as she poured Edward's drink. I laid my cheek on my arm and watched the interaction with one eye. The broad looked about like you'd expect- probably used to be pretty, too much eyeliner. Really big hair, complete with obvious dark roots. Leopard print leggings, low-cut black top. She kinda looked like Peggy Bundy, truth be told. Such an over-the-top cliché in this cliché of a sorry strip joint. If I grew up to be a bartender at some sad little "gentleman's club" in the middle of BFE-ville, I vowed to dress like a… I don't know, a preppy Gap girl, or in overalls and a tube top, or something equally out of place.

"Sure. Whatever," Edward mumbled, and he dropped the soft pack of cigarettes on the bar. I watched out of my one eye as the cougar leaned forward a bit, giving me an eyeful and he a faceful of no longer smooth cleavage; she picked up the smokes and tapped one out, never taking her eyes off his face. I didn't blame her. Even though I sort of hated his existence at the moment (or at least was very confused by it), I still had the urge to stare at him all the time. Cougar lifted the cigarette to her lips and Edward obliged by flicking open his Zippo and snapping to light it; I only rolled my eye because I could remember being impressed by it back in the day.

"Can I get a shot of tequila?" I asked, because screw it, Edward pulled it off, and I figured Cougar Lady Barkeep would be too interested in my ex-whatever to notice how underage I was. He helped me out by smiling devilishly at her.

"Cuervo?" she asked, without even glancing at me. Thank you for giving her the charm, Edward.

"Whatever's cheap," I shrugged. Without looking she reached below to the bottles with one hand and whipped out two double shot glasses with the other; she poured me out a nice amount from the Patron bottle and then poured one for herself. Saluting the two of us, she downed her drink in one gulp. Yikes. Wasn't Patron the good stuff?

Edward raised his scotch and his eyebrows at me and then took a big gulp. I raised my head and my glass and returned the gesture with an exasperated smile. I must've been used to drinking shitty tequila because the Patron went down pretty smooth, and I didn't protest when Peggy ("the name's Donnah- with an 'h' at the end, girlie") refilled all three of our glasses.

Six shots and about an hour later, I was next to Emmett, staring up at the stage. I felt a gross warmth around my shoulders and saw that one of Emmett's new buddies had put his arm around me, so I stomped on his foot and he let go. Gross old perv. There was a buxom brunette on stage, gyrating a little too enthusiastically (and slightly off beat) to the dulcet tunes of Axl Rose and company.

I think that maybe the dancers weren't used to fresh faces in the crowd because the brunette kept directing her pelvic thrusts and boobie shakes at me and Emmett, so I elbowed him in the ribs.

"Gimme a buck."

"What? Oh, sure," he murmured, not taking his eyes off the talent. He pulled the wad of singles out of the waistband of his pants ("Yuck, Emmett") and pulled out exactly one.

"Scrooge," I muttered, grabbing the dollar and folding it lengthwise between two fingers, like I'd seen the regulars doing earlier. I felt warm and good; gracias, tequila. Also, I felt the vague inkling that I'd be very, very sick later, but I didn't care. Patron was my friend. Emmett was my friend, this dollar was my friend, and the stripper was going to be my friend.

"C'mere, you!" I howled, standing up and waving the half-folded bill like I'd just won the lottery. Buxom Brunette grinned, revealing a small gap in her front teeth, then sashayed over and wiggled right in front of me. She did a sort of half-turn and looked over her shoulder at me expectantly. I leaned up and over and felt the room dip a little bit; pausing to gather balance, I smiled as the brunette stuck her rear toward me and wiggled again. I reached out and hooked the rim of her bottoms (Bikini? Panties? Do stripper clothes have special names?), put the bill in, and let go. The elastic snapped and she mock-jumped forward, putting her hand to her mouth and giggling. I heard whooping behind me, and when I sat down with a grin on my face, Emmett clapped me on the back. I don't know how I felt about getting his respect, but I decided to take it in stride.

The song ended and we cheered; I heard taxi-style whistling and the excited call of "Jasper! Jasperrrrr!" behind us.

"Gentlemen and the two ladies, I have the pleasure of announcing to you our next dancer. Give it up for the Blonde Rose of Texas!" Whistle, whistle. Emmett suddenly sat up straight and fussed at his collar.

"This is it. This is it, Bella. I know it." He looked so serious that I couldn't laugh. That, and I burped up a bit of tequila. I either needed another drink, a bottle of water, or a toilet, but I wasn't sure I wanted to put my face near the facilities in the place, so I took a deep breath and focused on the stage.

A single spotlight was on the pole and then this song I love by Portishead (that I had put on this lame mixtape I had made certain tousle-headed scotch drinking virginity-takers I've met) came on. "Ooh, Portishead. I love this song-"

"Shhhh," Emmett hissed, swatting at my arm. He leaned forward, anticipating. And then a big grin cracked on his handsome face; his dimple cracked, his eyes widened, and for a brief second, I saw what the other girls in school saw when Emmett had strolled down the halls of Forks High- Handsome Emmett McCarty, Star Quarterback, Homecoming King, ladykiller, and charmer extraordinaire.

A tall, slim blonde woman was slinking across the stage wearing a lovely black negligee. She looked way too good for this shithouse wreck of a strip joint. Beautiful, yes. Not the heavy makeup I assumed you'd see on a mere stripper; tasteful and natural, highlighting her lovely features. Hair long and flowing, not teased and hair sprayed and dyed. Legs for days, large, curvy breasts, etc. etc. etc. The kind of girl designed to make me feel bad about myself. She was scowling and strutting like one of those scary models with no meat on their bodies to the slowly pounding beat of the song, and then with no warning, she was off. Twirling, poling, uhh tap dancing. Whatever you called stripper moves.

"Marry me!" Emmett shouted, tossing a handful of ones out onto the stage right in front of us. The Blonde stepped forward and onto the pile. She lifted one slim, shimmery leg and pointed her toe at Emmett before stomping her foot onto the pile of cash, grinding the money with the tip of her shoe like she was putting out a cigarette. Emmett was totally hypnotized by that shoe, too; one of those clear platform-y stripper shoes (and I suddenly got the reference, tequila-soaked brain and all) with clear straps. Her toenails were painted black or maybe bloody red, making her milky white skin stand out. Maybe I was mesmerized by the legs, too.

So anyway, there Emmett sat, leaning forward with his mouth sort of hanging open to the blonde who was, indeed, the girl on the billboard.

"Marry him!" I shouted, because, hell, why not? The blonde lifted her foot primly and Emmett made to grab for it, but she just wagged her finger "no" at him and then planted her foot on his forehead and pushed him away. I decided I liked her then and there.

Emmett leaned back, looking even more dazed and dazzled. His grin returned to his face as he rubbed where she'd kicked him. "Bella…are you seeing this? She's like… a saline angel. In stripper heels."

"I think those things are real, Emm."

"Woman, please. Maybe if you had any tits, you'd be able to tell the real thing-" He pointed at my (admittedly flat) chest, "-and the fake thing." He pointed at the blonde's jiggling boobs and momentarily lost focus. I "harrumph"-ed and he returned back to me. "Them's some tig ole fig bitties, Bella. Get to know the difference. Some things in life you can't learn from reading a book." He then leaned his elbows back on the stage and put his chin in his hands, gazing up at his dream lady.

"She's sexy," I offered as we watched her hang upside down on the pole in the center of the stage.

"Blasphemy! Sexy is not… there just aren't words," Emmett murmured, and for a minute, I thought he might start weeping. His eyes were following her every movement; every gyration, every swish around the pole. Somehow her top just melted off, which took real talent. I struggled with the clasp on my bra every single time I had to take the thing off, and this flaxen-haired strip goddess did it without using fingers.

"Boy, there's always a word for it. In this case, that word is 'pussy,'" the slime in a jean jacket on the other side of Emmett offered.

"Mister, I can see that you're drunk, so I'm just gonna let that slide," Emmett said to the guy, his eyes on his topless lady love, who was crawling across the stage to him.

"Want me to dance for you?" she purred to Emmett, licking her lips and then rolling onto her back. How did she lick them and still have such a glossy shine? I resolved to ask her later. Err- did strippers like, mingle after the show or whatever? Would that make a stripper groupie?

Emmett nodded slowly.

"But no touching," she smiled at Emmett. He shook his head, his mouth hanging open.

An arm appeared from over my shoulder and placed a shot glass in front of my face; without looking, I knew it was Edward. I could smell him. Or the scotch, maybe. Or maybe I just knew by the way the hairs on the back of my neck tickled. Or that funny feeling like my vaginal canal was falling and I had to clench to keep it in. And how did he know I needed another drink? I decided to ignore him for the time being and instead took that seventh shot, suddenly feeling really comfortable in a topless bar and light on my feet.

"Jasper!" Not Alice called at me from across the room. She lifted her glass of red wine and her cigarette and gyrated her hips at me. "Jasper?"

"Dancing?" I called back. I stood up and pushed past Emmett, who was busy getting his face stroked by the back of a stripper's fingers. He was still grinning at her goofily, and I decided he was fine where he was.

I worked my way down the bar, licking off the spilling tequila from my fingers, which were still wrapped around the shot glass.

"Not Alice," I said, when she kissed my cheek, "I think you're my best friend now." Then I tipped the shot glass into my mouth. Hey, no burn this time.

Not Alice beamed at me and threw her arms around my neck and we danced. It seemed that Emmett's Blonde Rose was doing a double set as the Portishead smoothly turned into good ole Def Leppard. Just… me and Not Alice and the Saline Angel, dancing all around the place, knocking into chairs and laughing for no reason at all. I don't know what had happened to Jasper and I didn't care what had happened to Edward; I was having too good a time. Even though I had to bite back a really gross tequila burp.

"Jasper," Not Alice whispered once the song was done and pointed to the bar where Jasper and Edward were sitting. Edward had turned in his stool to face the stage (and us), his elbows back and resting on the bar. He was staring at me with this amused sort smile on his face, looking thoroughly entertained.

I smiled back for the hell of it. The thing is this- things like drinking tequila can make you forget why you hate a guy. They blind your memory so that you can only remember the times when he used to call late at night just to say "goodnight" in a soft voice, or when he gave you the first sip of a just-opened soda because he knows you think first sips are the best. Things like tequila make it so that you can only remember that he can _really_ make you laugh sometimes, and that his skin is always warmer than yours, and that he lets you put your cold fingers and nose under his shirt or on his neck to warm them up.

And then Edward Cullen was walking across the bar with his glass of scotch and cigarette in one hand and a smirk on his face. He took one hand from me and one from Not Alice, and I twirled like a ballerina while he held our hands over our heads and watched me spin myself dizzy. Just before I lost balance and fell into him, he caught my waist and stopped me, then whispered in my ear.

"Let me," he whispered.

"No," I loud-whispered back.

"Let me," he repeated, his breath hot on my neck.

"I only let you before 'cause I thought you were special," I said, and gosh if _that_ wasn't the truest thing I've ever said.

"I can be special for fifteen minutes again," he whispered back.

"Go to hell, Edward," I said flatly, but I didn't mean it and it didn't even sound like I meant it. He knew me well enough to know I didn't mean it, too.

"Show me something good, Bella."

His arm wrapped around my waist and my arms went around his neck and I hugged him and he hugged me back and for a few drunk seconds, it was _then,_ and not _now_.

He put his forehead on my shoulder and his arms went tighter. I put my fingers in his hair and yanked his head back, my fingers fisting deeper into his hair. I felt insane with the memory of doing this a thousand times, my fingernails scratching his scalp. I had a flash, a brief moment in the backseat of his dad's Volvo and my fingers were twisted in his hair just like this, and I wondered if I scratched hard enough, would I find his brain and how it worked? I never did figure that one out.

"You drive me _crazy,"_ I said, looking right into his lust-and-scotch-filled eyes. "Why do you do this to me?" God, why?

He smiled wide and phony at me but didn't answer and I shook my head.

"Come on. Let me," he said. I pulled back an inch or two, trying to look for truth in his eyes. All I saw was sex.

"Right. Then you can ignore me for another two years."

"I'm not ignoring you now," he whispered, but he was looking at my lips.

"You hurt my damn feelings when you did that to me," I said. "Badly." I was trying not to pout, but my head was starting to un-fuzz, and I figured if I didn't get another shot soon that I'd start to feel really crappy and start to regret putting my arms around Edward Cullen. I tried to back away a step, but his grip on me tightened even more.

"You know I didn't mean it," he said, and his finger flicked my earlobe.

I didn't know that. He _did_ mean it. Of course he meant it. Why would he have just… _done_ that if he didn't mean it?

"I'd be stupid to get back into this game with you," I said. I frowned a little and tried to focus on what I was about to say. "I want you to know that I'm not stupid. I know what my eyes look like when you talk softly to me, and I know _you _know how to work me. You're not pulling a fast one on me this time, Edward."

"You want a slow one?" he whispered into my ear.

And gosh, yes. I wanted _it_, and I wanted _him_. But he makes these moves and he says these things and I knew from experience… the deeper Edward Cullen got under your skin, the more it hurt when he ripped himself away.

But this time goodbye was on _my_ terms.

"Kiss me goodbye," I said, and he smiled this smilethat I used to think meant _I love you_.

I heard the ice clack in his glass and his free hand pulled on my shirt, bringing me closer, and he kissed me just the way I remembered, with warm lips and the soft tip of his tongue.

"No fucking _touching,"_ the Saline Angel screamed, and it was like someone slapped me or threw a bucket of water on my head because yeah, _no fucking touching_, but a half-second later I realized she wasn't talking to me, and then it was chaos. Emmett was hollering and then Edward's scotch was shoved into my hand and he and Jasper were across the bar before I could barely turn around.

"Jasper! Jasper!" Not Alice started yelling and pointing. She grabbed my hand and we ran over there and watched Jasper and Edward try to pull Emmett off the Jean Jacket guy.

The Saline Angel, meanwhile, was helping Emmett kick the shit out of Jean Jacket with her seven inch, clear platform shoe. I didn't know what to do, but I'd seen my dad break up a few fights whenever a Zepellin tribute band was in town for those summertime Concerts in the Park the police station put on, and I figured girl help was better than no help at all, but Edward seemed to know that I was going to do something stupid because in between putting his hand on Jean Jacket's face to keep his swing from hitting Jasper and yelling at Emmett to get his shit and run, he turned around, pointed at me and said quite clearly, "Don't even fucking think about it, Bella." So Not Alice and I stood there, waiting for someone to tell us what to do.

Though I'm not entirely sure how, considering that there was only the cougar and the DJ guy working, the six of us, now including the Saline Angel, ended up in the parking lot of Midnight Sun.

"Fucking perfect. That's fucking fan_tastic_," Saline Angel was yelling and quite frankly, scaring the shit out of me. She struggled to tie up her bikini top while her mouth spewed obscenities that would take up all of the paper in Charlie's yellow legal pad.

"You're welcome," Emmett muttered, his fingers hesitantly touching the puffy, red skin around his eye. Jasper behind him was being soothed by Not Alice, who was fluttering around and wriggling her hands and whispering "Jasperjasperjasperjasper." I had no idea where Edward was until he came strolling out from behind the corner of the building, pulling his zipper up. How could he just at a time like this?

"I just lost my job!" the Blonde shrieked. "I have no… I don't have a job now! I have rent due in three days, and I don't have a job— and now I can't even buy myself dinner! You're _you're welcoming_ me?"

Emmett took his shirt off and tossed it to her and she quickly pulled it on over her head.

"What can you do?" Emmett asked her. She glared at him and he said, "I mean, like real world skills."

"I can take my clothes off," she spat bitterly. Edward yawned and started ambling back toward the van. His shirt pocket had gotten ripped in the fracas so he had rolled his pack of smokes in his sleeve like some hoodlum from the 50s. He pulled out the cigarettes and lit one, offering it to Jasper who took one with a sigh. Not Alice walked over and yanked it off his lip, coming over to me as she snapped it in half.

"Jasper," she sighed, showing me the broken cigarette. I just nodded in sympathy.

"Your rear right is bald. You're gonna blow that tire," Saline Angel sighed, and squatted on the black top parking lot, rummaging through her purse. I figured it took a certain amount of grace to squat in a dusty gravel parking lot in stripper heels and a bikini bottom and not fall over. I probably would have killed myself trying. Emmett came up behind her and pretended to inspect the tire. I knew firsthand that he knew jack squat about cars- junior year he had tried to jump start my truck and ended up incapacitating both of our vehicles.

"We have a spare… can you change a tire?" he asked. To his credit, he appeared more concerned about the stripper than the van's busted tire. He kept trying to cover her shoulder with his over-large shirt.

"What kind of idiot can't change a tire?" she asked, wrinkling her nose as she poked at the hub cap.

Emmett turned to Jasper.

"I'm bringing her on as resident mechanic."

Jasper looked at Not Alice. He didn't have a right to say no at this point.

"Can someone with a cell phone call me a cab and leave me twenty bucks?" the stripper asked in a world-weary voice. I suddenly felt really bad for the girl. It almost seemed like the worst injustice in the world that this hot chick was stripping for cash, but then I checked myself. How did I know she didn't have some sort of like… meth problem. Or maybe she loved stripping? I could feel sobriety creeping in as the tequila faded from my bloodstream.

The stripper shoved Emmett's hand away impatiently and stood up, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. It made me feel better that she looked so human in that moment. Tall, leggy blondes often made me feel like a leprechaun.

Emmett looked at her for a moment, but not in a gross way; he simply stared at her back as she stood there. Then, with a gentleness I'd never witnessed from the guy, he touched her wrist and said in a soft voice, "Come with us."

She snatched her hand away, snorted and made a lewd gesture.

"I'm serious. Come with us. We have money and nowhere in particular to be. You don't have a job and apparently no friends or family to call for help."

She looked back at the building, then looked at Emmett, chewing on her lip. Then a hard look of purposeful decision came over her face and she said, "Screw it. I've done stupider shit before." She sighed. "I don't prostitute, so don't ask. I'm Rosalie, by the way." She awkwardly stuck her hand out and Emmett clasped it, his dimply Homecoming King smile lighting up his face.

"Rosalie. I'm Emmett. That's Bella and Alice, that's Jasper, and over there leaning on the van is Edward. Oh, and I meant it when I said marry me," he said.

Rosalie looked at me for confirmation that he was sane. I shrugged, and we all piled into the van.


	5. Chapter 5

**thank you to the fictionators and LJ summers for recommending this story today. gung hei fat choy****!**

My eyes opened slowly and crustily. I think days of stale cigarette smoke and the dust of butt effing Egypt was starting to adversely affect my vision. I blinked a few times, my eyeballs feeling sticky and gross, and the first thing I noticed once my eyes had un-blurred was the fact that the van wasn't moving. I felt a gnarly crick in my neck and as I woke up more, I became aware that the only things between my cheek and Edward's shoulder were his thin t-shirt and a filmy layer of my drool. I could've sworn I'd been sitting by Not Alice when we left the strip joint.

I blinked and sat up slowly, using the back of my hand to swipe at my cheek. Edward was asleep, his head tossed back at some kind of impossible angle on the seat. I scooted away from him but he slouched into me. Grimacing and holding my breath, I shoved his arm, remembering the one time I had slept at his house () and I kept waking because he was smothering me with his body, and maybe I was inexperienced with this sort of thing, but I was pretty sure I wasn't a cuddler. Edward slept like he was dead, and I had to shove pretty hard to get him to shove over. This time, I held my breath and pushed, and his entire body slumped over, giving me half the bench. He let out a big snort and then continued sleeping, snoring softly but barely moving.

I stretched a bit and kicked off my shoes, noticing Rosalie the Stripper up in the passenger's seat, picking at her nails. The driver's side was empty, so I assumed Emmett was inside the gas station where we were parked. "Scooter's Gas n Go". Nice.

Rosalie turned around and looked at me, sizing me up and down. I didn't see any hostility or judgment or anything in her eyes. It was just like she was checking to see if… well, I'm not even sure of what, exactly. I just know that I wasn't intimidated by her gaze, just, you know. Her insane beauty. I vaguely remembered Not Alice tossing her a package of Target brand Pond's moisturizing facial wipes when we all piled in, and if this is what Rosalie looked like without makeup, then consider me intimidated. I traced her perfectly tweezed eyebrows and noticed that her eyes were this really cool shade of blue-green and that she had perfect, creamy, blemish-free skin and lips that had no chap and _damn_ was this stripper making me feel bad about myself. Her cool appraisal turned into something more sinister when one of her eyebrows arched. I gulped and then froze under her gaze.

Yep. I was intimidated. What she said surprised me, though.

"I wouldn't have had that job if it wasn't absolutely necessary," she said, and her tone said quite plainly, "Quit judging me." Was I judging her? I didn't think I was.

"Oh. Okay," I said, trying to avoid her perfectly perfect eyes with their perfect color.

"I actually got laid off from fucking Burger Barn before that. And I won't try to rip you guys off or whatever. I just don't have… anything else. To do. Or go. I mean, I don't have any _place_ to go. Or anything. Like, at all."

"Oh, I didn't think… that."

"It's fine if you did."

"I mean, I'm not questioning you. It's all cool." I suddenly felt really stupid.

"Cool." She sure looked cool. Icy, even.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

"I'm okay, you're okay. We're all fucking okay, Rosalie. Promise." Emmett had chosen that exact moment to hop into the van. He handed her a red traveling coffee mug with steam coming out of it and then handed me a loaf of bread, two jars of creamy peanut butter and a box of Imodium-AD. "Don't worry about Bella, she suffers from saying the dumbest thing possible at the worst moment, but she means well enough." I chucked Edward's empty smokes at Emmett's head. "Hey, don't distract the driver, buttwipe."

Rosalie crossed her arms and turned in the seat to look at him. "Don't call her a buttwipe, asswipe." Emmett grinned and for a second I thought she was going to smack him, but instead she smiled. He turned to look at her, to _really_ look at her, but not in a gross Emmett way. Like, in a sweet Emmett way. Rosalie had no idea how rare that was… or maybe she did, because her entire demeanor unclenched, and she relaxed.

"Okay, Rosie. You buckled? Good." Emmett shifted into gear and checked over his shoulder, backing up while Rosalie studied him with the same intense stare she gave me. She sniffed delicately at her coffee and smiled softly before turning to face front.

A few miles down the road, Rosalie suddenly popped open her seat belt and scrambled to the back seat. She plopped down next to me, totally ignoring Edward's still-sleeping form and in fact using it as an armrest.

"So, what's up with Emmett? Do I need a restraining order?"

I cracked a smile, but she didn't smile back.

"No." I shook my head for emphasis. "Emmett's… got more layers than you'd think." I was speaking to the back of the van because for some reason, I didn't want Emmett to hear me singing his praises. I realized as I started talking, though, that I meant every word. "Like, he's totally obnoxious and to be honest, he's not my type. At all. But the kid's got a good heart. He's pretty hilarious, too." She bit her lip and looked out the window and I said softly, "You could do worse than an Emmett McCarty."

She chewed on that for a moment and licked her front teeth before talking again. "Would you date him?"

I wrinkled my nose. "Not my type. Eww."

"I mean, if you didn't know him like you do. Would you?" It seemed like an odd question to be asking, but I could see in the set of her jaw and the way that she stared straight ahead as she asked it that she needed the answer to be yes. I was glad, for her sake, that it was. She just seemed so… vulnerable. Still wearing a stripper top under a complete stranger's shirt, but vulnerable. Besides, the answer to that one was easy.

"Yeah. I would."

"Okay." She stared at me hard for a minute and then as if her mind was made up she nodded crisply. I glanced at Emmett to see if he was listening, but the noise of the radio kept all backseat conversation pretty private. She took a deep breath before saying, "Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"Sometimes… men scare the shit out of me." Her voice was hushed. She smiled faintly and then put her palms on the corners of the front bucket seats, propelling herself forward. She fell gracefully back into the shotgun seat. Emmett turned and beamed at her and she gave him a tight-lipped smile back. Without taking his eyes off of her, he reached into the front pocket of his t-shirt and produced two raspberry Tootsie Roll Pops; she looked a little stunned but then she took one, laughing. They each unwrapped their candy and Emmett toasted by knocking his against hers. She tossed the balled-up wrapper at him and I heard him protest; something about "the shooting star Indian chief guy meaning you get a free one" and "don't waste free suckers on me, lady." I shook my head, about to chide Emmett for insensitive use of the term "Indian", but I decided not to ruin their moment. I glanced at Edward instead, wondering if he would ever bring me a cheap lollipop from a liquor store. Maybe once, a long time ago.

"Yeah, they scare me, too," I muttered, turning from his sleeping form and staring at the road ahead.

It was quiet for a second until I heard a whisper behind me.

"Jasper?"

I looked over my shoulder to see Not Alice sit up in the back of the van, her hair twisted in sleep-induced cowlicks all over her head and her lips puffy.

"Good morning, Not Alice," I smiled. She yawned through a smile and waved at me happily before climbing up over the seat and squeezing in right beside me, only she didn't use Edward as an armrest. She was little enough that she fit in between us perfectly.

Not Alice leaned forward and Rosalie twisted in the seat to see her. She scooted so she was sitting on my knees and then slowly put her hands out and gathered Rosalie's long blond hair between her fingers. I think she was watching how the light caught the blonde as sunshine filled the van from the front windshield.

Rosalie looked at me, kind of freaked out, but she didn't move and Not Alice leaned forward, studying the hair intently. I shrugged one shoulder and Rosalie looked down at Not Alice's moptop, a million questions in her eyes that I had zero answers for. Oblivious to our silent exchange, Not Alice started braiding Rosalie's hair and Rosalie let her.

"That one your boyfriend?" Rosalie asked, her eyes darting to sleeping Edward.

"No," I said.

"_Jas_per," Not Alice said, smiling and braiding.

"He used to be. I think. Turns out he's an asshole," I said, trying to be nonchalant. I think I failed, though.

"Bella. Lots of guys are assholes. Believe me, I've met most of them. _That_ one isn't. I can tell," Rosalie said, looking to Not Alice for support.

"Jasper," she responded with a fervent nod, and Rosalie looked a little confused by this, but she went on.

"Half of him is and half of him isn't. I think he might have an evil twin or some shit," I said, shifting to accommodate Not Alice's bony butt.

"Usually when they're confusing you, it's just because they're even more confused themselves," Rosalie said sagely, and Not Alice coiled the braid around Rosalie's head, securing it with some bobby pins that she had magically pulled out of her back pocket.

Rosalie felt the braid around her head. "I feel like I should be yodeling on a mountain," she muttered.

Not Alice laughed and patted the top of Rosalie's head and just like that, she hopped back over the seat back to Jasper and sleep.

Rosalie patted her braid again but didn't take it out, and her eyes met mine. Instead of questioning that whole, odd exchange, she simply smiled. And I did too.

Miles later found us at yet another gas station. Jasper had hopped out, dragging Not Alice with him. I prayed they weren't messing around or anything because frankly, the thought of any… sexual escapades in a dreary, dusty parking lot like this one just wigged me out. Rosalie and I were heading out back to use the facilities, so I shouted to Emmett to be sure he grabbed hand sanitizer.

We were finished before Emmett was done in the gas station, so we waited at the van, sitting in the opened doorway with our legs dangling in the dusty parking lot. When Emmett got back to the van, he handed out a cheap plastic pair of sunglasses to me and tossed another pair on sleeping Edward's lap.

Then he put on his own bright yellow framed glasses. They all looked like those glasses like Tom Cruise wore in that one movie.

"Red hot for my lady," he said, and tossed sunglasses on Rosalie's lap.

Mine were hot pink and the ones in Edward's lap were electric blue. I swapped them out, leaving him with the hot pink frames. Jasper scored the mirrored Top Guns and Not Alice's were heart shaped and purple.

"Can we afford this?" I asked, but Emmett didn't answer. He turned up the radio instead and smiled at Rosalie as she slid on her Red Hots and put her foot on the dash.

"Can we see the Grand Canyon?" I shouted some time later, above the music.

"No, Grandma Swan, we can't."

"Where are we headed?" I asked, not too put out about the Grand Canyon.

Jasper popped up from the back of the van with Not Alice's lips attached to his cheek.

"Reno, bitches."

"Aww shit!" Emmett shouted, turning the van around and headed, presumably, toward Reno.

Edward woke up with a jump, lifted his head and ran a hand down his face. He blinked once and looked at me.

"Shit," he muttered, then put the hot pink sunglasses on and laid his head back down.

Three hours later, we were all out on a deserted road while the boys took turns peeing at the side of the van. I sat cross-legged in the back making sandwiches for everyone, trying to avoid the bright sun. I listened as Emmett and Rosalie, who had started searching through each other's bags, tease each other about what each considered to be toiletries. Jasper and Not Alice started up some kind of weird game of tag going on, jogging and skipping up and down the deserted road. Pent up energy and all that.

Edward came up and crouched down against the back bumper of the van where it was slightly shadier, counting the cash in the Cubs hat. I was feeling bold in my electric blue shades, so I leaned forward and tapped the crown of Edward's head. He swatted my hand away and I leaned forward, preparing my speech.

"Say whatever it is you're going to say," Edward sighed, flipping through the bills quickly with his thumb and forefinger.

"How do you know I was going to say anything?" I asked, trying not to pout.

"Because you're doing that thing with your mouth that you do when you're thinking of something to say."

"You weren't even looking at me."

"I don't have to look at you. I _know_ you. What do you want?"

That pissed me off. "Did you kiss me at the bar because you were drunk?" I blurted out.

"Yep."

I tossed aside the last sandwich and jumped off of the van, standing in front of him with my arms crossed, ready for battle. He didn't look up, so I kicked his feet.

He looked up and stared at my tits. I scowled and then took a deep breath.

"You don't get to do that to me anymore. It's confusing and crappy. It makes you a _crappy_ person. And stop looking at me like I disgust you but you want me to screw you. It's disturbing."

"Do you wanna fuck?" he asked earnestly, raising an eyebrow. "Because if you want to, we can—"

"Shut up. And look. We have to be friends. We're living in a van, for Pete's sake. So just… keep your lips off of me and be nice to me and stop min- screwing me and let's just… be friends. Or try to be."

"That'll do, little girl," he said dismissively, going back to his cash and swiping his brow with his wrist.

I slapped his cash-counting hand and he glared up at me.

"Don't dismiss me. Don't act too cool, and don't act like you're above and over all this. You might be over it, but I _know_ you, Edward Cullen. Save the BS for the next one." I was standing in the sun, hands on hips and furious as hell. He looked up at my face this time, squinting his eyes and scowling at me.

"I'll do that," he said after a pause. "And then maybe next time _you_ can do the dirty work yourself, instead of sending Daddy to do it for you."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, I dunno. That one time your dad gave me your message about never wanting to hear from me again. Now, be quiet or go away, because I'm pretty sure we have a major problem. Emmett!" He bellowed up into the sky and I just stood there, totally confused.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked again, but he didn't answer; he was too busy swearing at Emmett.

"How the _fuck_ have we managed to not spend one dollar?" Edward asked.

Emmett smiled serenely. "I spent seventeen dollars back at Midnight Sun."

"And there's only seventeen dollars missing, Emmett." Edward was squinting again, only this time he looked like Clint Eastwood in that one western that Edward claimed was his favorite movie. How does one guy have so many different squints? Edward, I mean.

"You're welcome," Emmett said, spreading his hands out and smiling widely.

"Wait." Edward paused for a second and looked like he was doing some mental calculating. "Emmett, you've… you've been ripping off… _everything_?" Edward asked.

"Eh, it's been easy. We move so quick that—"

"Gas? Food? Cigarettes—"

"And sunglasses," Emmett added proudly.

Edward rubbed his eyes with one hand, pushed his hair off of his forehead and looked up smiling.

"Well. Okay then," he shrugged.

"Okay then what?" Jasper asked, sauntering up with Not Alice on his back.

"Okay… it appears that we're some kind of unarmed gas station robbery ring," Edward said. Jasper laughed out loud and I stood there, contemplating the entire thing. Not Alice giggled and covered her mouth with one hand, looking furtively at each of us and then laughing silently one more time. Jasper looked up at her and a slow smile overtook his face. She grabbed him by his chin and kissed his forehead, whispering "Jasper" a few times. He nodded as if coming to a decision about something.

"Screw it. If we're doing this, let's really do it," he said.

"Son, I've _been_ doing it," Emmett scoffed. Rosalie was slightly behind him and he reached out and grabbed her hand, kissing it and then bringing it to his chest.

"Anyone want out now?" Edward asked, his eyes roaming around the group. He gave each of us a significant look, saving me for last.

"You are all insane, but I've done worse for money. I'm in," Rosalie shrugged. Emmett beamed and gave her a "that's my girl" kind of look.

"Jasper," Not Alice said firmly, nodding once.

"We could all end up in like, huge trouble," I said. The guys groaned and Rosalie shrugged. Not Alice just smiled.

"No one ever got the glory without a little bit of trouble, Bella," Jasper said. On one hand, I agreed with him. On the other… well, I supposed my upbringing (or just my father being the sheriff of a small town) was trying to kick my morals into gear, but something in the back of my head was saying, _yeah, why the fuck not_?

"We won't get glory. We'll get jail," I pointed out. There were those pesky morals again.

"Maybe. Maybe it'll be worth it, though," Jasper replied.

"It usually is," Edward mused quietly, folding up the cash.

"Swan. In or out? It'd be awesome to have a police chief's daughter in on this…" Emmett trailed off. I rolled my eyes.

"It could also mean we'd get busted a lot quicker," I retorted.

"She makes a point," Rosalie said.

"Look," Jasper said, taking his time, glancing around at each of us. "If we do this, we need to be in it all together. We need to trust each other. And if one goes down, we all go down. It's gotta be a… we have to be a motherfucking _force_. It's the only way it'll work."

"Go down?" I uttered blankly, because suddenly, this wasn't just a silly I'll-be-home-in-a-few-weeks-road trip.

"We can drop you at the next truck stop," Edward said. I narrowed my eyes and regarded him coolly, standing there all dusty and tired and still good to look at.

"I'm in."

"Well," Edward said, pulling on his hot pink sunglasses. "Let's go see about showers and hourly rate motels."


	6. Chapter 6

**thank you for the reviews, they're lovely! also, if you've noticed, i send a bit of whatever i'm currently editing out with review responses. some of you get teasers for the next update... and some of you have seen bits of chapters 7, 8, and 9. you'll see at the end of this one... things are changing for our glory-bound bunch. -j&w**

We checked into a nasty motel in a nasty county somewhere on the way to Reno (or so I assumed. My sense of direction has always sucked). Because we had an unexpected-by-everyone-but-Emmett surplus of cash, Jasper and Emmett insisted on three separate rooms. Because they wanted to screw their new friends.

This meant Edward and I would be sharing a nasty room, which was fine, as I was more concerned with grilling him about Charlie than I was with being in some ridiculous gas station robbery gang.

I mean, who cares about a few packages of Ring Dings and cartons of Camels?

Edward opened the door to our room which smelled like cheese, eggs, and hooker. He tossed his backpack on the bed and immediately took his shirt off.

"Seriously?"

"Shower," he sighed.

He turned to fling his shirt on one of the beds and as I watched it fly through the air, I blurted out, "Oh. Right. Listen… earlier… Earlier, you said something about Charlie. But it made no sense."

He unbuttoned his pants and let them fall to the floor.

"No shit. I thought the same thing," he muttered, then unzipped his backpack. No. None of it made sense.

"I never told Charlie to tell you anything. And then you just… all of that stuff happened, and you totally ignored me. You went totally _asshole_ on me—"

He fished his toothbrush out of his bag, stuck it in the side of his mouth, and looked at me. "I was fifteen years old, and you scared the _shit_ out of me." I took a gulp of air while he paused, shifting the toothbrush to the other side of his mouth. "Yeah. I flipped out for a second, sue me. I said shit I didn't mean, and I _did_ shit I didn't mean and I was sorry for that. Am sorry. I'm sorry for all of… that."

"If you were sorry, then you should have said so," I muttered, not really meaning it. I mean, I was past all this, wasn't I? None of it mattered anymore. Or did it?

"I _did_ say sorry," he said firmly. "In three phone calls and a fucking _letter, _I said 'sorry'. And then your father told me you were going to file a _restraining order_ if I didn't leave you alone. So, I left you alone. And I get where this is going, Bella. That your dad's an asshole, that you never said you wanted me to stay away. Whatever. That still doesn't explain why the hell you didn't come to _me_—"

"You were being a dick!"

He tilted his head so that his toothbrush poked him in the collarbone, then pulled it out of his mouth and pointed it at me. "You're not supposed to curse, Bella."

"'Dick' isn't a swear. Dick."

"You _know_ I'm a dick! When did that _ever_ keep you away from me before?"

"It was different! I thought you just… freaked out about the whole pregnancy that never was, and maybe I was freaked out, too. Okay?" I could feel the vague outline of a headache forming behind my eyeballs. Like, a high pressure front settling in on my sinuses.

"Whatever. _O-kay,"_ Edward muttered, and he walked to the bathroom, the door closing behind him. I got up and followed him, because this was shaping up to be a huge revelation, and how can he just "whatever" the whole thing?

I opened the door without knocking and entered that bathroom without hesitation. He was standing there naked, unscrewing the tiny bottle of motel shampoo. He looked right at me while sniffing at it.

"It's not too bad," he shrugged, all nonchalant while I was preparing to have my world upended inside, and he tilted the stupid bottle toward me. I didn't take it and I briefly wondered if he had always been so comfortable being naked, or if he was just comfortable being naked with _me_.

"Don't you think we should… talk about things?" I asked while he shoved the shower curtain aside and pulled at the dirty plastic knob marked "H" and "C" in seventies-era script. He turned it all the way to "H" and I watched the steam immediately begin to fill the room around his dirty-tanned skin.

"What things?" he asked, stepping into the shower. He didn't bother closing the curtain; he just put his face under the no pressure water stream.

"What things," I whisper-repeated, then clearing my throat, I said, "Like… like that we never intended to break up?"

"Shit happens," Edward muttered, squeezing shampoo from the little bottle into his palm. "What were you, barely fifteen?"

"I'm pretty sure I loved you," I said plainly, my eyes wide and my stomach churning while he proceeded to yawn and wash his hair. "And God, this like…"

"Like what?" he asked after I trailed off.

"I feel like I got cheated. I feel like Charlie ripped me off," I said, biting my thumb nail. "Don't you remember? How it was? We were… we were really great. I might cry over this again." And it was true. The pressure in my head and the roiling in my stomach were making my face leak. I leaned over and grabbed some scratchy toilet paper so I could wipe my nose. I took a breath before continuing. "How could you be so mean to me? Why was that so easy to do? Edward…" He was quiet, going about with his shower, and I didn't expect much from him. Edward never actually said very much of anything.

He bent his head, letting the water run over the back of his neck, then angled his face toward me and stared for a second.

"Things aren't always so easy to say," he said quietly. "It was nice with us. Really fucking nice."

"Nice?" A less adequate word was never uttered. "Nice."

"Yeah, nice. You wanna get in the shower with me?"

"Seriously? Please, Edward, just… for once. Say something to me. Say something, so I don't feel like I'm delusional and just… making up what we used to be."

He put his face under the stream of water and rubbed his face before looking at me. Then he looked down and sighed, droplets of water going everywhere as he shook his head from side to side.

"Look. Maybe I fucked up, maybe you did, maybe Charlie did_. I don't know_. But now you know I didn't mean it, and I know you didn't mean it. So, I guess we can both just get over these asshole attitudes."

"Like… we're friends?" I asked, because this was all rather anticlimactic.

He shrugged, sending more water outside the shower. "I've never been a good friend."

"I don't even know what that means."

"It means that you probably could have it all over me."

"Oh." What?

He turned to face the shower and I stood there like a fool, wondering what the hell all of that meant, but this certainly wasn't the big reunion I felt like it should be.

"Whatever, Edward. Don't let my love confession go to your head. It was years ago."

"It already did," he said, half of his mouth turned up, and he gestured down. "Things are about to get crazy in here, Swan."

"What?"

I looked down again and saw _what_ he was soaping up.

"I've been stuck in a van."

"Edward… gross."

He laughed and closed the shower curtain and told me to get out unless I was going to help.

I stepped out of the bathroom to find Jasper and Not Alice in our room. As I closed the bathroom door behind me, I paused for breath before speaking. Finally, I opened my mouth to ask what was up, but Jasper just pointed at the television… and I was looking at a picture of myself, while a news anchor narrated.

"Swan, Whitlock, McCarty and Cullen disappeared from Forks, Washington on what was supposed to be a post-graduation road trip celebration. It's still unclear whether or not Swan is a willing accomplice or if she's being held against her will. As specialist Eric Yorkie mentioned earlier, it might be a situation not unlike the infamous Patty Hearst case decades ago."

My jaw dropped as I watched grainy security camera footage of Emmett stepping out of a Speedway gas station, his arms full of stolen junk.

"Mary Brandon is the fifth to join this band dubbed 'Youth in Revolt.' Brandon disappeared in Mississippi after straying from a supervised group outing with the Clallam County Juvenile Psychiatric Home. According to Brandon's doctors and foster parents, her mental health is dependent on prescription medications and she is a mute, incapable of any speech since around seven years of age. If you've seen Brandon or any of these teens, please call your local police department. Although there hasn't been a violent attack yet, it's still unknown if these teens are armed."

I watched grainy film of Not Alice get in and out of the van at some diner we stopped at awhile back, the one where Jasper found her and brought her on board.

Emmett and Rosalie walked in the dingy room just then.

"Did you see this?" Jasper asked them.

"That's nothing," Emmett said, taking the remote from Jasper's slack hand. "Look at this."

He flipped a couple of channels and there was a girl, crying, wearing a t-shirt with Edward's face emblazoned on it.

"They're like…amazing," she was saying through tears, and then the footage changed to some kid with a Bieber haircut and glasses with no lenses.

"They're damning the man! These guys know what's up, man. Screw the system! Run, Whitlock, run!"

"They're freaking _heroes_! They're saying 'screw you' to the oppression. They're taking it _back_."

"I watch the news every night, just to see where they showed up and I hope they don't get caught. I'll _cry_ if they get caught. Swear to god. I'd cry. For reals tears and _everything_."

A pretty T.V. reporter pulled her mic back and spoke to the camera.

"There you have it. The group is quickly becoming infamous, even idolized, by teens nationwide. The implications of such a-"

Emmett flipped the TV off and I heard a low whistle from the far side of us. Edward was there, a towel around his waist, and he was using another one to rub through his wet hair.

"How… have we been dodging the police?" I sputtered.

"We haven't been trying," Jasper said. "It's just… happening."

"We are in such deep shit," I said, staring at the now black screen.

"You wanna call your dad?" Edward asked me, quietly, now going through his backpack.

"Are you out of your damn mind?" Jasper asked him. "She can't—"

"Shut up, Jasper. If she wants to call, she can," Edward said, slipping on a fresh t-shirt over his wet head.

"I don't," I said. And I didn't.

I was too mad at Charlie just then.

Maybe it was really darned stupid, and maybe I shouldn't have been playing like a sullen child with a game of fire- but screw it. I was mad at Charlie, and seeing Edward wet wasn't helping to resolve my anger.

I missed things! Probably big, huge, important, life-altering things, and it was Charlie's fault for being a liar.

Dammit.

We all sat there and stared at the screen for a moment and I thought about what Jasper had said, right when this whole thing started.

We're all in it together.

We have to be a motherfucking _force_.

"Mary?" I asked, but Not Alice didn't even flinch in my direction. "Alice."

She looked up at me and smiled, and I supposed right then, she was officially _our_ Alice.

"If she needs medication—"

"She's fine," Jasper said.

"Sure, now, but Jasper—"

"She has pills in her purse, she's been taking them every night at nine. And you guys? I don't think she was being treated very well wherever she was before. Did you hear that? She hasn't _spoken at all_. And now…"

"Jasper," Our Alice whispered, and she reached up to pat his head softly. Then she turned around and grabbed her purse and started digging through it. Wordlessly, she produced three orange pill bottles and took the caps off, one by one.

There were two capsules left in each bottle.

The six of us looked down at the pills spilled on the bed and Edward sighed while Emmett's eyes darted back and forth, contemplating.

Rosalie sat on the bed and put her arm around Our Alice and someone needed to just say it.

So I did.

"Well. We'll have to get her more, then."

I didn't even _want_ to know what the consequences of stealing pills from a pharmacy would be… but it's not like it mattered at that point. And besides, now, we followed our own laws.

We take care of each other.

Jasper picked up the pills and put them in their respective bottles, capped them all, and gingerly put them in Not Alice's purse.

He looked up and locked eyes with Edward and they kind of nodded at each other.

"Well, kids," Jasper said. "We're motherfucking outlaws."

That's when Emmett stood up and made this exultant, triumphant howl and a thrill and a feeling of being whole and safe, of being tucked into this fold washed over me.

We were giddy.

We were confident.

We were a family.

We were motherfucking outlaws.


	7. Chapter 7

**hey, we're really stoked that so many of you have seen **_**the legend of billie jean**_**. oh, and in case you were wondering- it's not available on dvd omg. **

_**it's a do-or-die situation, we will be invicible. –pat benatar**_

Being a group of motherfucking outlaws required a few necessary rules and changes.

Spray paint the van… once a freaking day, which of course meant we had to steal spray paint all the damned time. You'd be amazed at how many Mom and Pop hardware stores there are. You really would. Someone would go in and buy one can… and then Emmett would steal the rest. Yeah, they were always locked up, but as long as you sent Rosalie in to flirt with whatever minimum wage earning guy was working, he'd get distracted enough to stop paying attention to the lock on the spray paint cage.

We could've bought them, I guess. But we didn't. Because spray paint is fucking expensive in bulk, and because… it kind of defeated the purpose of spray painting the van at all.

We very rarely all got out of the van together, and never in the daylight. Unless, of course, we were on a long stretch of deserted road, which actually happened a lot. You'd think with all of that alone time where it was just us and our thoughts that we'd actually, I dunno, analyze what we were doing.

I can't say that I speak for everyone else, but I knew I was decidedly not analyzing what I was doing. Maybe for the first time ever. It felt kind of… well, not good. But certainly not bad. Maybe just _freeing_.

At any rate, it was decided that we'd avoid the highways at all costs, whenever we possibly could. It's not like we were driving out of our way or anything. We had nowhere in particular to be.

Jasper thought we'd end up in Brazil at some point. Maybe when the media gave up on us, we'd just hop on a plane.

No one would extradite a group of kids back to the U.S. for ripping off gas stations, and Jasper "knows a guy" who specializes in "papers."

I liked that idea, because then my name could be Simone de Beauvoir Francesca Petite.

Emmett wanted to be Nacho Guevara.

Edward thought we should work on less conspicuous names.

But all that was ahead of us because right then, we were working on a pharmacy heist.

We were in the now green van in a parking lot of some tiny, run down, Podunk pharmacy, waiting for a little old lady in a '78 Cadillac to actually leave the parking lot, so we were certain no one else was inside.

"What the hell is she doing? Step on it, Granny Clampett!" Emmett shouted, his knee hitting the steering wheel as it bobbed in anticipation.

When she finally pulled out at .003 miles per hour, Emmett nodded to Rosalie, who grabbed a few bucks from the Cubs hat.

"Okay, Rosie. We're waiting five minutes. If it's a dude at the counter, Jasper will be in seven minutes after you have him distracted. If it's a chick, come out within the five minutes, and we'll send Pretty Young Thing in to seduce her."

"Got it," Rosalie said, yanking her shirt down to expose her faux but really nice cleavage. Our Alice had fished deep into the recesses of her bag and produced a small necklace with a big purple pendant on it. When she fastened the necklace around Rosalie's neck and we all stood back to admire the effect, Emmett had patted Our Alice on the head and said, "Today's gold star goes to the little mute for special effects. I didn't think it was possible to make them puppies look any bigger, but I'm very glad to be proven wrong. Kudos."

We watched Rosalie sashay into the store, her hips swaying and her chin high. I must say, I was really starting to like that blonde.

"You think she'll do okay?" Jasper asked.

"She's got this," Emmett said, his eyes still on the door. "She's a born hustler."

Four minutes later, Rosalie hopped back in the van. She dropped a crisp copy of _Busty and Bare _on Emmett's lap and he stared up at Rosalie.

"I had to buy something," she shrugged.

"I'm in love with you," he said.

"I know. So listen," Rosalie said, turning around to face the rest of us. "It's a chick, mid-twenties and an easy con. Edward will have her wet and oblivious in two minutes flat."

"Okay, let's go," Jasper said, reaching for the handle on the sliding door.

"There's a problem," Rosalie said. "The pills are behind this gate thing. I couldn't spot any keys, so they must be on her. It's too risky for Edward to feel her up, pull the keys and somehow hand them off to Jasper. And Jasper's hand won't fit through the gate. But Bella's would."

Edward looked over at me and I nodded slowly.

"Okay," I said simply. Because really, it'd be the same as Jasper going in. We're all together in this.

Our Alice leaned over the seat and took my face in both of her hands and looked me in the eye very seriously.

"Jasper."

"You're welcome, Alice," I said.

Edward slid the door open and reached behind himself for my hand. He pulled me out and our hands stayed together and we walked, shoulder to shoulder across the lot.

Edward side-eyed me and half smiled, and I squeezed his hand.

"Don't be nervous," he said. "Nothing will happen to you."

"You got my back?" I snorted.

"All of you."

He shook my hand off of his and quickly put his arm around my neck and pulled me in so that his lips were at my temple, but the whole time he looked ahead to the building.

"You're going to wander down an aisle and when I have her away from the counter, hop over it, grab what we need, and get out. Don't wait for me."

"Okay," I whispered, but I don't know why I whispered. It felt like I should. Like we had a little conspiracy, just between the two of us.

"Okay. Be cool and be good, Bella."

"_You_ be good." He laughed softly and loosened his hold on me, but not really.

So, we had a plan. It sounded okay, and he took me off guard with all his closeness and whispering and intense confidence, so I was just going with it.

We walked in and Edward strode to the counter, leaving me in the first aisle of uneven shelves. I stared dumbly at mouthwash and boxes of outdated band-aids, all covered in bright green price stickers and a thick layer of dust.

I peeked through the rickety shelves and watched as Edward approached the counter.

"Hi there," the blonde behind the counter said. She was good-looking in this skanky barfly Podunk town kind of way. "Here for a pick up?"

Edward smiled and looked her up and down, even leaning over the counter to get a full look, like a brazen, horny, hot, cool sex man.

What the hell?

"Come here," he said.

_Come here? _Seriously? That was the smooth con line I had to work with? "Come here"?

Then I rolled my eyes when it actually worked. She came around the counter and leaned an elbow against it, with her hips angling out toward Edward.

"You know, I didn't mean this kind of pick up," she said.

"Do you mean it now?" he asked, and he tugged at the bottom of her shirt.

"Well. 'Pick up' generally denotes some kind of ride," she said, and he yanked her closer.

This was just fucking ridiculous.

Edward grabbed her hand and he walked forward while she was a step behind him. Behind the shelves I flipped his shit-eating grin the bird.

They disappeared down an aisle and I tiptoed to the counter and used the little half door she had just come out of.

I looked on my palm where I had scrawled the names of Our Alice's prescriptions and hoped to God they'd all be reachable and _here_.

My heart pounded and above the pulse in my ears I could hear giggling and Edward's low voice. Not a whisper, really; his voice was just loud enough so that I could hear him, so that he could let me know I was still in the clear.

I spotted one of the names of the pills and stuck my hand through the grate. I had to really shove and wiggle my wrist around a little, and I knew my skin would be raw, but I couldn't feel anything through the adrenaline rush. I worked my other hand in and once both of my hands were through, the rest of my arms slid right in and I gathered up everything I could reach, grabbing with one hand, holding with the other.

I managed to grab and find all three, and then I got excited and a little bit impressed with myself and then… I got sloppy.

My hand knocked over a box of inhalers.

I froze, listening, my eyes squeezed shut.

I heard Edward's voice, slow and calm as my chest tightened and my knees went weak. I tried to slowly and quietly pull out my hands.

And they were fucking stuck.

"No. No no no _no_," I whispered, jerking my hands back.

Then I heard their footsteps and I started to sweat and _really_ panic. I got my hands up to the wrists and managed to fling the pill bottles out of the fucking cage and onto the floor. Screw not making noise.

This jig was up. I jerked my arms, on the verge of tears and frustration, and finally they pulled out, but my skin caught a jagged edge on the way.

There was immediate blood. At least a two-inch slice.

"What the hell?" a female voice asked.

I turned around, tucking my hemorrhaging hand under my chin.

Edward and the pharmacy girl were staring at me.

"Sorry," I mouthed to Edward.

"Dammit," he uttered, and quickly pushed open the half door and picked up the pills from the floor.

"What the hell is… I _knew_ you looked familiar," the pill lady said, pointing at Edward. "You're the Youth in Revolt kid!"

He grabbed my free hand and led us back around the counter, and then he stopped to kiss her cheek.

"Then you should've known I'm a fucking minor," he said, like _he_ was disgusted with _her_ antics.

He dragged me down the center aisle, and he barely slowed his pace when he picked up a box of gauze and the dusty band-aids and one of those mini sewing kits.

We walked out where the van was, just in front of the exit, the sliding door already open for us. I hopped in first and Edward jumped in after me, rolling and slamming the door shut behind us.

"Go. Fast," Edward told Emmett.

"What the hell happened?" Rosalie asked, squatting between the driver and passenger seats.

"I got stuck."

"Swan and her man hands," Emmett muttered, squealing the tires as we pulled out much too fast.

"You get them?" Jasper asked and Edward tossed the pill bottles one by one back to Jasper.

Our Alice launched across the seat and kissed my cheek, then threw her arms around Edward's neck.

I gawked when he actually hugged her back, but she quickly did her scurry thing and flopped back over the seat to Jasper.

I held my hand under my chin, trying not to think about it or look at it, but it was becoming impossible because I could feel the blood starting to trickle down my chest.

Edward braced one hand on the back of the passenger seat and used his other to dig underneath the seat.

"We need to take care of that," Rosalie said, gesturing to my hand.

"Do we risk an E.R.?" Jasper asked from the back.

Just then Edward straightened up, producing a bottle of vodka from under the seat. He opened the top and took a big gulp, then another.

"Nope," he said to Jasper, then handed me the bottle. "You're gonna want some of that."

I eyed both Edward and the bottle with skepticism. "I don't think this is going to help my current situation, buck-o." He shook his head and I had another retort, but it was cut off when Edward held up the sewing kit.

So, I took the bottle from his hand and choked down a sip. He reached out and pried my forearm out while I _really_ tried to protest.

"Don't look," Edward muttered, and he held up my hand to his face. I held the vodka against my chest and couldn't not look. "Do you want to try a hospital? We can."

The van slowed, and Emmett looked at me over his shoulder. I felt Our Alice playing with the ends of my hair behind me and Jasper rested his chin on the low seat and nodded.

"No. I… just… do it," I said, then took another drink. The liquor felt bad, possibly worse than the pain in my hand. Burning down my throat and sitting in my stomach, like there was a lake on fire inside my body. At least the hand felt like the fire was going out. Then I looked at the blood, my blood, bright and smeared on my arms and Edward's pants, and I felt the vodka coming back up. I choked it back and took another swig. Nodding, I handed the bottle back to Edward.

"Okay," he said. "You know I have no idea what I'm doing, right?"

"I know."

He took another drink, then handed it back to me. Using his teeth to rip open the cellophane package of the sewing kit, he gingerly put my hand palm-up on his knee.

"How hard can it be?" he said quietly to himself, and maybe if it were anyone else, I would've said no. But if there's one thing that I know to be true about Edward, it's that he can do just about anything. "Emmett, if you could avoid major potholes and dirt roads, that'd be super awesome." My diction was a little sloppy, and I wondered if that were due to blood loss or blood alcohol.

The van slowed and again, Edward took the bottle back from me and took another drink.

"Don't get wasted before poking me!" I shouted.

"If I had a dollar-"

"Stop it."

"Relax," Edward said, taking a deep breath and assessing my hand. Very slowly, he poured a tiny stream of vodka on my hand, and I was pretty sure I was going to die from the pain. He gave me a grim grin before unraveling some thread out. He dipped it into the bottle, then made to pour some out on the needle.

"Give it here," Rosalie commanded. She was pumping hand sanitizer into her hands and after she finished rubbing it in, she stuck her hand out. Edward gave her the needle without question and watched as she deftly poured some vodka into the cap and dipped the needle into it; she reached into Edward's shirt pocket and pulled out his lighter, flicking it on and holding the tip of the needle to the flame. I was mesmerized by the small rasp as the vodka caught fire. Or maybe I was just losing all of my life's blood as it leaked out onto Edward's knee and making me light-headed.

"Done this before?" Edward murmured, incredibly enough, with amusement.

Rosalie looked at him like he was a puppy that just soiled her brand new carpet and said, "Sanitizer. Wash your hands." He complied without further comment, watching as she laid out the gauze and band-aids with her free hand. Our Alice silently handed her a roll of white hospital tape that I'm assuming she pulled from her cavernous bag. Rosalie smiled, tossing the box of old band-aids behind her. She took the tape and added it to the line of supplies, and I had to wonder if the girl (woman, whatever) had had any sort of medical training.

She did a sort of mental checklist of her supplies and sighed heavily. Then, after eyeing Edward up and down, she said, "Good to go." He nodded, and she finally handed back the needle.

The needle.

I tried not to vomit.

"Hey. You trust me?" Edward asked, but he wasn't looking at me. He was threading the needle with steady hands and focused eyes.

"I have absolutely no reason to."

"That's not what I asked," he said, and then I screamed when I felt the needle slide through my skin.

My feet stomped and my ass lifted from the seat, but his grip on my hand kept it from moving too much. Despite everything… I knew he wasn't going to let go.

"Keep still, Bella," he said, his voice low and his face calm. Serene, even.

"Fuck you! Fuck you! I can't— oh my gosh! Hail Mary full of grace— what in the ever loving— what did I ever do to—"

Jasper came up and wrapped one arm around my chest from behind, and I wasn't entirely sure the hug was to keep me still.

"You can bite my arm if you need to," he whispered into my ear.

"Easy, chief," Edward said, then he breathed in through his nose and leaned forward.

Another needle prick.

I bit Jasper's arm and cried out.

Emmett turned the stereo up and Rosalie bit her lip.

I kicked the back of Emmett's seat and Edward's fingers shifted my hand and I felt the thread pull me back together.

"Shhh… okay," Edward was saying. "Be still… Bella, be still. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he whispered, all the while sewing away like he was fucking Tom Ford or something.

Jasper started to rock us back and forth and I just closed my eyes and let him. After awhile, really bad pain set in but the tugging stopped, and I felt Edward putting the gauze on and heard the _scriiiiiiiick_ as Our Alice's tape was pulled out. A couple more tugs and then my arm was gently lowered from Edward's knee.

"Done," he finally said.

I opened my eyes and wiped away the tears that I hadn't realized were flowing down my cheeks. Jasper let me go and kissed the back of my head before flopping back to the floor of the van.

"It really wasn't so bad," I said, then hiccupped. I felt the burn of vodka and stomach acid in the back of my throat. I looked around for something, anything to drink, and Rosalie handed me a bottle of Arrowhead. I thanked her with my eyes and swigged with my left hand, the other hand. It felt weird and wrong, but there was no way I was going to use my surgery hand for a while.

"Fuck," Edward said, then turned quickly and banged on the door. He looked like I felt a minute ago.

"Stop! Stop, Emmett!" I shouted.

He slammed on the breaks and Edward flung the door open then leaned out and puked.

A lot.

Without a word, I got up to squat next to him, and handed him my Arrowhead. He shook his head and swiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Jasper passed over the vodka bottle and he accepted that one with a miserable nod. He took it and rinsed his mouth twice, spit, and shut the door.

"You pussy," Emmett sighed, and we were off again.

Edward leaned back in the seat, his face flushed and his hair a little sweaty. I pulled him down so his head was in my lap and he took my sewn hand and wrapped it up in his arms without ever opening his eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

**we're quite touched that so many of you thought the puking was sweet. thank you for that. we sent out a varied lot of previews in response to reviews, but we're certain you're not quite ready for what's coming up next… enjoy! oh, and this one's for anna. happy birthday, peach. –j&w**

I was driving the newly painted red van. My hand was bandaged and throbbing, but not infected, thanks to the vodka poured on it every two hours. The thing was- every time Edward would pour it on, he'd take a sip. Or a guzzle. Or ten. And I'd forgotten that when Edward got drunk, he got… ridiculous. And talkative.

It was dusk and we must've been in the bowels of the United States because everything was deserted and there was no radio reception— unless you count static and some awful a.m. station that was talking about alien encounters and the apocalypse. I mean, we couldn't even find NPR.

Edward was leaning forward in his seat, his palms doing a made-up rhythm on the dashboard. I eyed the empty cans of Red Bull at his feet and thought to myself that it was a poor choice to accompany his vodka.

Everyone else was sleeping, and Edward was buzzing with energy, which was an odd turn. It was usually the other way around.

Then he started making up words for his made-up song.

"Everyone is taking a snooze, I drank mucho, mucho booze booze booze…"

I gave him a look that was intended to convey something along the lines of "You're really stupid and what the hell is the matter with you."

"She's a Swan, not a wee little duck…she looks at me like she wants to kiss me or maybe just—"

"Ffft. I _do not_!"

"You do_. I _do," he shrugged, and took another sip of his vodka. He wrapped his fingers around the neck of the bottle and used the back of the same hand to wipe his mouth.

"That ship has sailed," I said, but just so he'd have something to protest.

"Why? You're here. I'm here. Everyone else is pulling tail." I swallowed a smile and pretended to think on it a moment before responding.

"Because if we weren't here, you wouldn't even consider it. That's why. I'll pass on being your only option, thanks."

"We could just go down on each other," he smiled and tapped the dash again.

"Rain check." He made a lewd gesture with his tongue and two fingers.

"Ready when you are," he said, then rolled his window all the way down and held his arm straight out.

"I'll let you know."

"Kay. Hey. Bella?"

"Yes?"

"In case I never said it, or in case I never say it again, you were the best. Maybe I never said it and maybe I didn't let you know, but you were always really… fucking good. In all of the ways. The best thing I ever had was probably… me with you. I wouldn't have ended it. I really wouldn't have."

Well, what do you even do with that?

"You're drunk."

"Doesn't make me a liar," he said, then he pulled his arm in and leaned way over to me. He used his thumb and forefinger to lightly squeeze my cheeks together.

"You're my favorite," he said, making me have fish lips.

I swatted his hand away and he laughed until he flopped back into his seat.

"Edward. What really happened that night with my dad?" His head lolled in my direction, still on the headrest.

"You don't really wanna know. I had it coming."

"Tell me." My good hand was gripping the steering wheel, the knuckles white and straining.

"He pulled me over. And he said, 'Do you know how loud your radio is, son?' and I said, 'Do you know how loud your daughter is? Sir?' Things took a shit-dive pretty much right there."

"You're a dick."

"We've established this. But… you know. Two days before that he busted me for a broken tail light and gave me your message or whatever… so I was pissed."

"You were pissed?"

"My heart was broken," Edward said dryly. "I was empty and bereft and all that shit that follows when a guy's down about a girl. I was looking for a fight. The fact that it was him was just too perfect." I could feel his gaze on me, but I didn't want to look. Afraid of what I'd see reflected back at me, maybe.

"Hey, Edward?"

"Huh?" he asked, turning to gaze out of the window.

"Why are we doing this? All of this? It's like, a suicide mission, for sure."

He spit out the window and contemplated that for a second.

"What's the words to that one song? 'Kill yourself for recognition.' Maybe it's like that. Or maybe to feel invincible. Or to feel like we've done _something_… or maybe because it isn't everything else. Maybe we just wanna live it up," he sighed, burping softly into his hands.

I thought on that for a moment and said, "Is that that Radiohead song? It also says, 'don't leave me high and dry,' I said wryly.

"Well, there are lessons to be learned all over the place. That Thom Yorke guy may be British and have a wonky eye, but he knows his shit."

"Mmm." We were both silent for a moment, watching the road fly by in the glare of the headlights. Edward leaned over and picked up a mostly empty Red Bull and swirled it a couple times before tipping his head back and shaking a few drops onto his tongue. He burped out the side of his mouth and continued.

"I dunno, maybe we're doing it because no one told us _not_ to. Maybe because we're all a bunch of entitled dirtbags. Maybe just because, apparently, we _can_. Maybe we don't wanna wait our fucking turn in line, and maybe we're, we're too… restless, or too tired, or maybe we're all just full of shit."

"Could be that."

"Maybe we wanna be a- 'have you heard?' on the damned six o'clock news. Maybe some of us are running away. Maybe some of us are just running. Maybe we'll make it, though."

"Yeah," I said, thinking of Our Alice and Rosalie, sleeping peacefully behind us.

"Fuck it, maybe we were just bored."

"Maybe."

"I don't know why, Bella. But I'm doing it 'til they stop us. And right now, I feel unstoppable."

"Me, too."

There was a rustling in the back, and I looked over my shoulder to see Jasper's shaggy head pop up. He rubbed one eye and pointed at me.

"You wanna know why, Swan? _Why_? For the glory, that's why. Because every day I wake up and I see in the mirror what my old man sees, and that can't be the rest of my life, too. Because inside everyone in this van, there's an unsatisfied rage. Because we're fucking rolling stones, and none of us could ever really hang out in mediocrity and be average until we're dead. Because Emmett's a klepto and Rosalie is a hustler, and because fist fights with policeman daddies would never make Edward feel good as this does. Because Alice has shit to say and never could before, and because I can be straight up _diabolical_. And you? Shoot, Swan. You're here because you're a little bit of _all_ of us. Because no one else was making this move, and we're stupid enough and brave enough and desperate enough to pull it off, and be pleasure-seeking bastards in the meantime. That's why."

Our Alice's hands crept up Jasper's neck and he was pulled back down, but not before he gave us a wide grin and the peace sign.

"Well. That was a little dramatic," I said dryly to Edward.

"He's out of his damned mind," Edward muttered.

"Or he might be right," I whispered back.

When it was full dark, I pulled up at an old general store-looking type of place on a reservation where Jasper insisted no one would recognize us.

"I can just go in and buy them, Emmett," Rosalie told Emmett as he prepared to go in and rip off the store.

"Pssh. It's a pride thing now, sweetheart. I'm on a roll. Besides, I won't get caught. I can't _possibly_ get caught stealing tampons. I will not go down for tampons. Consider it incentive," Emmett said.

"Okay. You remember—"

"Of course I remember. Unscented, plastic applicator. Nothing with the word 'pearl' on it. Got it and gross," Emmett said.

"Oh! Tylenol. For my hand," I said.

"Tylenol wrecks your liver, get ibuprofen instead. Oh, and we're out of vodka," came Jasper's voice in the background.

"Anything else?" Emmett asked, sounding a little impatient.

"K-Y," Edward said, then sneered at me while I rolled my eyes.

"Tampons, Advil, and lube. Piece of cake."

"Hostess cupcakes," Jasper said.

"Hostess cupcakes? Sno-Balls, bitch. I don't lift cupcakes."

"Jasper," Our Alice said.

"She wants the pink kind," Jasper told Emmett, and I didn't even know how he translated that, but Our Alice smiled and nodded, so clearly, he was right.

Emmett grabbed a buck from the hat to buy one soda and got out of the van while the rest of us waited in this tense silence, like we always did. Whenever Emmett went in somewhere, it was like we all held our breath; like, if we were very, very quiet for him and acted invisible then somehow, he would be, too.

It was stupid and we never said it out loud, but it had to have been what we were all thinking. And anyway, it always worked.

I watched Edward bite down on his thumbnail. Not chew on it or anything, just… biting down on it. I sat with one fist pressed to my lips while Rosalie stared at the sliding door that had just closed and somewhere in the very back, Our Alice and Jasper were being frozen for Emmett, too.

Then Edward's eyes kind of went wide then shut slowly.

He swore under his breath when his eyes opened again and he held one hand out, like he was going to snatch me from the seat, then quickly took it back.

"What?" I whispered, not even moving my lips, but I wasn't sure why. It's not like whispering would help anything.

"Shit," Edward said at the same time I heard a rapid tap on the window right behind me.

"What the fuck is that?" Jasper shouted and Rosalie looked over her shoulder, her eyes frantic.

The window tapped again, but I couldn't make myself turn around.

"What do I do? What do I do?" I whispered frantically, my heart pounding and my eyes locked on Edward.

"I won't leave Emmett," Rosalie said, her voice full of challenge and something darker, like… a warning or something.

"No one's leaving anyone," Edward said, then just like that, he leaned his whole freaking torso over my lap and manually rolled down the window, his arm jerking and hitting my lap and jiggling my body.

His ear was a half inch from my face and I couldn't make myself turn my head around and face whatever cop might be knocking on the window.

"Hey," was Edward's brilliant greeting to what might be our fate.

"Holy shit! I told you, fuckface! It _is_ them! Edward fucking Cullen!" I still couldn't turn my head. I think I knew that it wasn't really a cop before Edward had invaded my personal space and opened the window. I knew we were going to be okay. I knew that it was just another member of our weird fan club that we all sort of knew was sprouting up all over the country.

Edward let out his breath and put on his easy, carefree smile, but I was still tensed up. Whether it was because I was still freaked out or because he was touching me, I didn't know.

"Right, so we're kind of busy here, and—"

"Shit! Are you guys robbing this place _right now_? Holy mother— dude, can I get your autograph? This is the greatest—"

"That might be a conflict of interest for me," Edward said, his hand now bracing himself on the headrest, right next to my head. I could see straight up the arm of the t-shirt he was wearing, could feel the warmth of his skin and smell the Right Guard and warm guy smell from his armpit.

"Isabella Swan? You guys… you guys don't even _know_. You're like… holy crap. Just… holy crap. How can we help?"

I turned my head to finally see three very large Native American guys crowding the window, smiling like we were the second coming.

"You can shut up," Edward said, getting annoyed. I jacked him in the ribs and he turned his face so we were nose to nose.

"What the hell did you do that for?" he asked, sounding sincerely offended.

Well, maybe because we might not want to be rude to people who clearly just fucking busted us.

I didn't say that, though; I just smiled at the guys crowding the window.

"We don't really need any help—"

"Dude. You guys. We're having a party. Come to our party, it'll be—"

"Are you fucking—" Edward started.

"We can't," I said, cutting Edward off. "It'd be way too—"

"We live out in the sticks. Everyone wants to help you! Come on. Seriously, like everyone. Do you guys not know? Do you not even… dude, they don't even… Look. I get what you're saying, about risky… but seriously. This would like… make our fucking _year_."

Jasper loped his smarmy body up from the back and somehow managed to stick his hand out the window between me and Edward.

This was getting ridiculous.

"Jasper—"

"Jasper Whitlock. Six foot two, unkempt blonde hair, star of the Forks basketball team, Senior Class Treasurer, only son, suspended for possession of a possibly illegal substance in the tenth grade. And you, Isabella Swan. Five foot two, brown hair and eyes, straight A student, police chief's daughter. And Edward Masen Anthony Cullen, class Salutatorian, winner of the National Academy of Sciences Young Engineers Scholarship and recipient of the-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Edward said hastily, cutting the kid off. He looked exasperated as he stared at him, saying, "God, did you memorize our rap sheets, or what?"

"Man, they only talk about you guys on the TV like, all the damned time. You're on t-shirts, man. So you hafta come to this party, okay? Shoot. Just come, yeah? Leah has your pictures up all over her walls… seriously… Stop by this party, just for a second. You guys are like… _legends_."

"Legends?" Jasper asked, and I knew right then that we'd be attending a house party, no matter how bad of an idea it was.

Edward flopped back in his seat and looked at Jasper.

After three seconds, Edward's face broke out into a ridiculous smile.

"Fuck it. It's not worth anything if we don't use it," he said, and then the van door slid open and Emmett hopped up and into the van.

"Who the hell is this? This ain't a sausage factory, boys. No more room in the van," Emmett said over Jasper's shoulder, emptying his pockets on the seat between him and Rosalie.

"Shit! McCarty! This is freaking surreal— dude, I wear your jersey number. I looked up your stats for last season and—"

"What'd you say your name was, son?" Emmett asked, his interest now piqued.

"Jake. And man. You guys _gotta_ come to this party—"

"I like you," Emmett declared, pointing a finger to Jake. "I like this kid," he said again to Rosalie.

"It's a risk," Rosalie sighed, but not to deter him or anything; just to put it out there.

"That's the whole point," Emmett said. "This whole thing is a risk. If it's over tonight, at least these kids get a good story out of it."

And because we were, after all, pleasure-seekers on the side, we ended up at a house party in the middle of nowhere with what was apparently the entire senior class in the county.


	9. Chapter 9

**last week, wtvoc inadvertently updated **_**this**_** chapter to but caught it minutes later. anyone who clicked and kept the tab open have possibly read this already. then again, the review replies we've been sending out have probably covered the entire story already anyway, so… yeah.**

**this one's for you, the old crowd, who has taken to bothering us about updating, just like in the good ole days.**

**and to all of you, thank you for continuing to read and review. after all this time, it still means to the world to us. –j&w**

"Just follow me. It's a bit away, but that means we can be as loud as we fucking want," the tallest of the three said to me, flashing a big, bright smile and waving in the general direction of "over there" to me.

I sighed big and heavy and turned the ignition key, feeling the chug as she sputtered to life. None of us said a word- I couldn't say for certain, but I think we were all a little bit curious (and Emmett a lot bit smug) about these kids who kept calling us _legends_. I mean, it all seemed so ridiculous.

Anyway, I followed them to what I hoped wasn't that seedy motel deep in the wilderness to get serial killed like I'd predicted forever ago. But no, it was just an old abandoned property in the middle of some desert-looking area. I bet if it were light out, there'd be tumbleweeds and cacti (it's not cactuses, right?) and stuff. As it was, there was a big fire, and probably every person under twenty-one in the county.

All thirty-six of them.

As predicted by Jake, Embry, and Quil- who had hastily introduced themselves when we cautiously piled out of the van- we were very warmly received by everyone there.

They screamed and they hugged us and some girl flashed her tits in our general direction more than once.

So, you know, we stayed for a few drinks. And then a few turned into a few more.

And then somehow I was telling my life story to Jake while I sat on an old radiator and the crowd buzzed with excitement and music and shitty beer all around us.

"So, whatever, my mom like… wanted to be an amateur baseball groupie? I guess? Which, hey, I can respect a lady with a plan, so that was alright, and my dad Charlie—"

"The cop," Jake said, grinning.

"Right! Oh, geez, you know that? I keep forgetting you know things."

"Everyone knows these things. Your dad's been all over the news. You should know, I guess. I mean, he wants you to call him really badly."

"My dad… might have ruined my whole life or at the very least, I'm pretty certain he ruined the natural progression of my precarious, delicate coming-of-age years. Which is like… I'm not even entirely certain I'm past those years yet, so I feel justified in saying it was my whole life that he ruined and… no. No. I'm definitely not calling him." I could feel the stubborn set of my chin and I probably looked like I did when I was five and Renee had told me that Jonathan Taylor Thomas probably wouldn't want to marry me until I was at least sixteen.

"Wow," Jake said, raking me up and down with his whole head. I nodded and kept sipping my beer, trying not to get too charmed by this kid. I mean, we were leaving soon and all.

I watched Edward go by, Our Alice twirling on his finger, which was high above her head like a ballerina while he held the rim of a red plastic cup between his teeth.

"She really a mute, like the news says?" Jake asked quietly as we watched them go by.

"She's a good girl," is all I offered on Our Alice. Maybe it was because even when drunk, a part of me knew I shouldn't be blabbing about our group. Or maybe it was because that it was the only thing I was really sure of about Alice.

"What about him?" Jake asked as we watched Edward wind his arm around Our Alice's waist and say something into her ear.

"Him? He's… Edward."

"The news says he's your boyfriend." I took a desperate sip of my beer and almost choked on it.

"He's Edward," I repeated, for lack of a better response.

"Is the blonde one really a stripper?" Jake asked, and I watched Rosalie fixing the leaking tap on their keg by having one of the party-goers spitting a wad of pink chewing gum into her hand and then pulling and stretching the gum like it was putty or something. I said nothing in response to Jake's question.

I felt defensive for Rosalie. I felt like protecting her. Like she was my family.

"You can't even know how fucking _awesome_ it is that you guys are like, right here, right now," Jake urged softly. I looked over at him and saw a sort of desperation in his eyes- not like he was desperate to do something, but like- and this sounds dumb- like he was desperate to _see_ something. Something cool and amazing, in the way that most bored teenagers from Smallville, USA are desperate for. Something like us, or maybe it was just me?

"No. I get it," I shrugged. "It's the same way for us, honestly."

"Is it?" Jake asked, and he leaned his head in closer to me, maybe to hear my answer or maybe just to be closer, but when I looked up again, I saw Edward.

Our Alice seemed to be doing some weird humping dance on his leg and his smile was frozen in place, but he was most definitely watching me.

So, I smiled back.

Our Alice kissed his cheek and I just kept right on smiling at Edward across the room and he kept smiling back until Our Alice pulled him over to the keg, where Rosalie was.

Jasper came by, followed by a group of people who'd been rallying around him for the past hour. He poured some of God-knows-what into my cup, patted my head, and continued his conversation with his new lackeys.

"It's crazy that you're here, because I see your picture on the news all the time and you're in all of these articles and I always thought… well. I thought 'that girl is _so_ hot'," he laughed. "But I guess I'd like to say it better than that."

"Hah," I chuckled, half listening to him, but half looking at _my group_.

Jasper, folding Our Alice up under his arm where she looked happy and safe; Edward and Rosalie arguing about the tap, but both of them smiling wildly. And then I was smiling, too.

It was one of those times… you know the times. The times when you're sure you are loved and warm and have a place inside of a tight little fold; like these people couldn't do this without you, and you wouldn't be the same without them.

An intimate system is what we were.

Essential to each other… _all _of us. Important in each of our own special ways.

Then Quil was there, motioning for us to get up, and the rest of the party seemed to file outside.

"Emmett McCarty is on the fucking roof!" he crowed.

"You'll wanna come this way," Jake said and grabbed my hand, leading me away from the flimsy door the rest of the crowd came pouring from.

I snagged Rosalie's hand as we passed, and she grabbed Edward, who grabbed Our Alice, who grabbed Jasper.

Jake led us up a flight of creaky, narrow stairs and into a bedroom that had a saggy, stained mattress on the floor and smelled like cat piss. He kicked a few empties out of the way and opened the one window in the room, which led out to the roof.

One by one, we stepped out. I felt Edward grip on to the back of my jeans waistband; whether it was to keep me or him steady, I wasn't sure.

And sure enough, there was Emmett, standing on the edge of the roof, looking down at the crowd below him.

I sidestepped slowly down the sloping, crumbling wood tile of the roof until I was close enough to grab Emmett's hand, and Edward was on the other side of me, holding my other hand. Our Alice went to Emmett's other side, then Rosalie, then Jasper.

Below us, the crowd pointed and shrieked and celebrated. What they were celebrating, I wasn't exactly sure.

"It could all be over so fucking _quick_," Emmett said.

"I'm not in this for a suicide pact," Rosalie said quickly.

"Not the point," Emmett said. "The point is… I've never felt so fucking _in control_. Alive. Not on a basketball court or on a football field or anywhere. Who knew… that fucking off the rest of the world… could give you so much _power_?"

And from his profile, I saw his dimple deepen and I knew he was smiling in the way that only Emmett can.

"Jasper," Our Alice sighed, and I nodded in agreement. Edward's cool hand kind of squeezed mine and I heard him take two deep breaths before he started to speak, low but clear.

"I'm a self-indulgent asshole and I never say much. Not because there's not much to say, but more just because… to hell with it. Most of you know about my mom. And. Um. Up until not too long ago, I was scared shitless that I inherited her crazy, or whatever. But I'm not. I'm not like her. And I know that now… because if I'm crazy, that means all the rest of you are, too. And I don't think there's a damn thing wrong with any of you," Edward said. "We're all right, I think."

"I think so, too," I whispered.

I hadn't known that. I knew about his mother; knew about her miscarriages and that they drove her a little or a lot crazy. She jumped off of the roof of their four-story home and survived, but she wasn't happy about the survival part. Edward had told me that much… but I had no idea about his own fears, or that he thought he might be too much like her.

We listened to the whoops and carrying-on of the revelers below us. No one spoke after Edward's admission, and it was a few moments before anyone said anything again.

"Things weren't going so well for me for a long time," Rosalie said, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I don't know what we're doing or how I ended up here, but… I want all of you to know. Even if this ends up worst-case scenario, you all have saved my life."

There was silence again, and we stared at the ground below us where the people looked insignificant so far, far below us.

"You know," Jasper started. "I have the balls and ambition and booze and pretty girls who I _love_ and boys like _blood _and we do what we want and we say when and it's all ours to steal. The whole fucking world is swinging from our sacs, you guys. And maybe it'll make us better or worse or locked up or heroes or dead or has-beens or nobodies. But fuck it. Right now is all there is. And right now, we own everything. King, you guys. King."

"Catch me if you can, motherfuckers!"

It was Emmett who howled first into the air, exultant and high, taking the rest of us with him, our hands held high above our heads, locked together in our unbreakable chain while we screamed and laughed and held on for dear life. That feeling like you know you can fall, like it's physically possible, but you just knew that there was no way that it was going to happen; that feeling was there, it was palpable, it was present. We couldn't fall. Not us. No way. It's a heady feeling, knowing that the price of falling is very dear and very precious, but we knew that as long as we stayed up there on that roof, holding hands and howling and trusting each other- we knew none of us were going to fall.

We passed around twirls and hugs, we kissed and we held hands and we held tight, sure that we were higher than this roof and this life.

When Our Alice started shivering and Emmett had vomited off the side of the building and Jasper had walked heel-to-toe on the edge long enough, that's when we knew it was time to go.

To keep moving.

One by one, we filed inside the window, helping each other in.

Jake was still inside, but watching from the window. He called my name as I was going for the door.

Jasper and Our Alice left the little room, followed by Rosalie and Emmett.

"Bella… can I talk to you for a second?" Jake blurted out quickly, just before I walked out with Edward.

"Sure. Gimme a second, Edward." I looked him in the eye, trying to communicate… something reassuring. I wasn't sure what, exactly. Just that I would be safe. Jake had been making moon-eyes at me all night, but it's not like they were affecting me or anything.

"Okay. You be careful," he said, patting the top of my hand before letting go.

"O_kay_," I said, rolling my eyes.

"I wasn't talking to you," Edward replied, and I realized he was looking over at Jake.

Edward just _has_ to start fights. It's like his thing, or whatever. He can't _not_ do it when the opportunity presents itself. It was almost like back when he had to jack off in the hotel because he was stuck in the van for too long. He'd gone too long without a damned fist fight.

"Just go, Edward—"

"Are you for real, dude?" Jake asked, stepping up.

"Edward, we don't need the trouble—"

"Then come with me—"

"She said she'd stay," Jake shrugged, putting his arm around my shoulder, which wasn't necessarily okay. I shrugged it off.

"You better run and hide from me right now," Edward said to Jake.

And then something entirely unexpected happened.

Jake quickly leaned down and kissed my lips.

He pulled back and grinned like the shit-eater he apparently was.

"That's all I wanted," he said, then raised one fist in the air. "I kissed Bella Swan the Youth Girl!" he announced, pumping his raised fist.

I wiped my shocked open mouth with the back of my hand and looked at Edward, who I just _knew_ wouldn't react kindly to this.

His head was turned down, but his eyes were on Jake and his jaw was kind of ticked to the left, and I knew he was contemplating exactly how to attack and win this particular situation. Jake was huge but Edward was an experienced scrapper, and I was drunk enough to not care to stop him.

Maybe it'd be kind of nice to have my honor defended.

By Edward.

A split second later, Edward decided to go straight in, no bullshitting around. He took two steps up to Jake and politely asked me to step aside.

"Don't kiss girls without permission, you giant bitch," Edward said. Then- much to my surprise and amusement- Edward slapped Jake.

Like, I would've done it myself except I didn't have to, because Edward seriously just… he just slapped another guy.

Then Edward had Jake by the collar, but that's precisely when Jake stopped being shocked by the entire incident and reacted. It was chaos for about two seconds before Emmett was there, trying to pull Edward off of Jake.

Then Jasper was there, helping Emmett pull Edward off of Jake.

And then Rosalie was there helping Jasper help Emmett pull Edward off of Jake.

And then Jake's friends were there, and there were fists and kicks and scratching from the tits-flashing chick and shouting and a few people laughing and somehow, Edward was pried off of Jake, but I had a feeling it was only because he was ready to be done.

Like that, Jake was in the middle of the room, holding his busted lip and grinning a big, delusional dumb ass grin on his face.

"Bitch slapped by Edward Cullen!" he announced, and the crowd cheered.

We got the hell out of there, lickety-split.


	10. Chapter 10

**hey, guys. sorry we didn't update last week- yes, we have lives and family and all that. shit happens, , and all the other excuses. we really do love writing these stories and sharing them with you, but sometimes the pesky real world upstages that. **

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**-jandco & wtvoc**

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Edward never really got into drugs. The occasional bowl at a party, maybe, and I'd seen him take a pill or two here and there. But he could always take it or leave it.

Because nothing got Edward higher than a good fist fight.

He craved them, like some kind of steroid-addicted douche bag. Edward liked to get in fights. Or rather, he liked the high he got after the fight. True, he was usually quiet in large crowds and he didn't necessarily pick fights with people; he was just hyper-aware once the opportunity presented itself.

He wasn't particularly muscular like Emmett was, but he was a persistent, tenacious fighter with a long, wiry body that wouldn't quit.

It was like he was made to fight.

I think he thought so, too.

Anyway, we scrambled back in the van. Our Alice, who I wasn't even entirely sure knew how to drive, was peeling off of the front lawn/parking lot and Edward was feeling elated from the fight.

There was a long, puffy, bright red scratch starting at the corner of his eye and ending just short of the middle of his cheek; other than that, he was unscathed.

Everyone was buoyant as we skidded out of there, providing commentary on Edward's rumble skills and talking shit about everyone who was at that party. I just listened, letting my head rest against the van door while Edward sat next to me, his knee bobbing and his hands all over the place, trying to find discarded booze somewhere.

"What the hell are you pouting about?" he asked me, leaning down to feel under the front seats for a bottle.

"I'm not," I pouted, but even I could tell my mood was in sharp contrast to everyone else's.

Edward smiled and rolled his eyes at me while Jasper and Emmett shouted a conversation over our heads, Jasper being in the passenger seat with Emmett sprawled out on the bench.

"Yes, you are. You're doing that thing you do when you want to say something but want me to ask you three hundred and forty-six thousand times 'what's wrong?' before you finally just say it."

He remembered that thing?

"I'm not doing that thing," I muttered.

"Fine. Then you just keep on not doing that thing," he said back, then he smiled triumphantly when he produced a mostly full bottle of rum above his head.

But I _was_ doing that thing, sort of. I wasn't sure what exactly was wrong, other than my bitterness over the demise of our relationship. But that wasn't anything new. I'd been living with that for what, two and a half years now?

I remained quiet and leaned against the door, still trying to figure out what it was that was making me so sour while everyone else carried on.

I watched a giddy Edward carefully turn around and drop Cheetos onto the top of the oblivious Rosalie's head and then _he_ watched _me_ watching _him_ do a ridiculous dance in which he alternately popped his shoulders and lip synched dirty lyrics at me, occasionally pointing in my face when he supposed the lyrics called for it.

"You're aware you're addicted to fighting, right?" I asked him. "It gives you a fix."

Edward shrugged his shoulders and continued on with his antics, pointing and dancing and dirty lyric-ing with gusto.

A few hours and countless miles later, Our Alice turned the music down lowand then glanced in the rear view mirror.

"Jasper," she said in a firm voice, addressing all of us.

"Yeah, I gotta take a leak, too," Jasper said.

"Yeah," Edward agreed and Rosalie perked up from the back, shaking a Cheetoh from her hair to say she had to go, too.

And then Our Alice drove right off the road and on through a field.

Now normally, I'd panic in a situation like this. You can't just _drive_ off of a road and through a field; but then, I've been doing many, many things lately that you just can't do.

It's funny, how things like this go. Driving off the road didn't bother me a bit at that point. Once you're a pharmaceutical felon, little things like that don't matter so much. I was becoming hugely desensitized, and I wasn't quite sure if that was a quiet source of relief or an unbelievably terrifying turn of events.

Our Alice stopped the van on the edge of a huge, grassy meadow just as the sky was turning that orangey-pink color, the sunrise sort of sneaking up on the dark enough that I could make out individual features on everyone as they stepped out of the van- Jasper's hair sort of Einstein-esque, Emmett's fingers splayed as he spun in circles through the grass, Rosalie's eyes wide, Edward's… everything.

"Wow," Jasper breathed as he walked out in front of everyone. "It's kind of beautiful here." And it was.

We all scrambled back to the van to get toothbrushes, toothpaste, and bottles of water and it was funny, because none of us spoke. It was so quiet in that vast space, and the morning was so pristine and it was just so easy to not say a word.

Our Alice pointed to a patch of purple flowers on the far side of the meadow, and she and Jasper ambled over there. I watched as they walked in perfectly synchronized steps, occasionally pointing at the sky and letting their clasped hands swing between them. I wondered if either of them was saying anything, then decided I never wanted to know.

Emmett took Rosalie by the hand and walked backward while pulling her forward to some place in the tall grass outside of the meadow. I noticed a row of condoms peeking out from his back pocket when he turned around and started running with Rosalie in tow, and I wondered exactly how long we'd be in that meadow.

I cracked open a bottle of water and my tube of Crest Original Paste, squirting a glob on Edward's waiting toothbrush.

I watched him brush while I brushed and leaned over, letting the foam fall on the grass.

"'Oo gotta beard," I commented with a mouth full of froth.

"An't shave," he sputtered back.

"Me neither," I said, then spat on the ground, rinsed, and did it again.

Edward grabbed the water bottle and did the same.

"That's really gross," he said, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

"I know," I said, and used the hem of my shirt to wipe my own mouth.

"How's the hand?" he asked.

"Fine," I answered and held my hand up. It felt fine, but the truth was that I hadn't actually looked at it since I was stitched for fear of having a Frankenhand. I flopped down onto the ground, careful to avoid the patches of toothpaste-y grass. Edward hunkered down next to me, balancing on the balls of his foot. He grabbed my pseudo-cast in one of his hands and fished in his back pocket with his other hand. He produced his keys and swung them around one finger, grinning widely in my direction.

"Those stitches can come out now," he said, still smiling.

"Are you drunk?" I asked. I just knew my eyes opened up wide and probably full of fear, and I hated that he saw it.

"Just drunk enough to do this," he said, and I yanked my hand back while he laughed.

"Seriously. I got it," Edward said in what I suppose was supposed to be a soothing voice but his words ended up being a little slurred. He opened up a small pocket knife key chain to this sticky looking knife. He wiped it on the back of his jeans and held it up, grinning.

I hid my hand behind my back.

"Bella. They gotta come out."

"I don't think they're ready," I lied.

"I know they are."

"I want Rosalie to do it."

"She _is_ doing it, right over there. Wanna go interrupt?"

"I'm too scared."

"I stitched it up, and that was way scarier than taking them out. Taking them out is cinchy."

"'Cinchy' isn't a word."

"Quit stalling."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"You don't trust me."

"Should I?" I asked, because seriously, _should I_?

"If we're still just talking about stitches, then yes."

"What if we're not?" I asked.

"Well, that's a different conversation entirely," Edward said and before I could respond, he'd snatched my forearm and wrenched it from behind my back.

I made a weird, strangled, whining noise and stepped on his foot deliberately.

"Ow!" he shouted, his eyebrows pulled down in anger.

"Well."

"That hurt."

"It was supposed to."

"Look, Bella." He suddenly sounded sober and concerned, and I wondered if not slurring was a big effort for him. "Taking them out won't even hurt, and if by some crazy, against-all-odds chance it does hurt, it'll be over in two minutes."

"I've heard this speech before," I said, arching an eyebrow and trying not to smile at the exasperated expression on his face.

"Very funny."

"Edward."

"Bella, just close your eyes. I'm starting."

"Again with the déjà vu," I said seriously.

"You sure bring that whole thing up an awful lot," Edward said, concentrating on my hand, but I saw the cocky half-smile on his face.

"Bring what up?" I asked, even though I knew damn well what he was talking about.

"You and me."

"A girl doesn't forget her first… things." I felt a tugging on my hand and mashed my lips together, trying not to think about it. Instead, I concentrated on the conversation at hand.

"She doesn't? Could've fooled me," Edward said, and the tugging on my hand got more intense on the next tug.

"What does that mean?" I demanded.

"That you seemed to have forgotten," Edward said.

"Forgotten what, exactly? That you tossed me aside like garbage after we had a pregnancy scare? Or that we humped like bunnies on Viagra for the better part of a year before you just… you just stopped coming around?"

There was a bit of silence while I fumed and he continued doing whatever it was with my hand. Finally, I heard him take a deep breath in through his nose and I chanced taking a peek at what he was doing.

"No," he said, his voice a little bit rougher than usual. "I meant you forgot _me_." He dropped my hand, which was now stitch-free.

"Huh. Look at that," I said, half to myself. Then to him, I said primly, "If I could have forgotten about you, I would've fared much better than I did. Believe me." We stared at each other, his face strangely blank and mine full of nothing. Then his brows pulled together and he was in my face and he was yelling.

"Then why did you _do_ that?" My gosh, but he was _serious_.

"Do _what_?" I yelled back, annoyed and confused and just so _frustrated_ with this whole thing.

"You cut me off! You just… Look, I understand that Charlie was an issue. I get that. But Bella. It was me, and it was you. Me and you. We weren't just messing around. I mean, we were _friends_, too. I told you shit that I would never…" He trailed off and shook his head, then shoved his hands in his pockets.

"I _know_ we were friends, too. And that's what sucked, Edward. You were my best friend. I _needed_ you." The look on his face and his words and just everything was bringing it all back, charging in and unlocking that part in my heart or brain or wherever these things are kept, forcing them into my body and out through my eyeballs and mouth and all the other orifices. This heat was pouring out of me, and all of it was focused on him.

"I needed you!" he shouted back. "So where the hell _were_ you? And you want to blame _me_ for this shit?"

"You looked at me like you didn't even _know_ me! You promised me things and I told you that I loved you and I _meant_ it."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and rested one hand on the top of his head before he laughed, soft and humorless. "Just forget it," he sighed. "We're cool now, right? Just… whatever with everything else that happened."

Oh, fuck _that_.

"No. Not whatever. I'm sorry, Edward, but to hell with you. I'm not _like_ you, I can't just 'whatever' things. I need closure, dammit. So say whatever it is you were going to say." I can handle it, I swear.

"Fine." He paused a moment, licking his front teeth without opening his mouth before beginning. "Why was it up to me to follow you around and make sure you were ok? You holed yourself up in your house and freaked out privately. What was I supposed to do, barge into your house and start yelling for you like some obsessed creep?"

"Yeah, okay. Maybe I did hide. But pardon me for being fifteen and for allowing myself to have a measly three day freak out over the scare of _my lifetime._ And not once did you call or come over, or-"

"My mothertried to off herself. She isliterally insane, and we were just finding that little gem out. Then that stuff happened with you and I thought_ I_ was going crazy, just like _her. _ And I was freaked out and fucking scared and Bella, I was tired. Straight up tired." His shoulders sagged like maybe he was still straight up tired. He took a deep breath and shoved his hands in his back pockets before continuing. "It's exhausting to think that you're out of your mind. Things started spiraling so quickly, and I thought I was drowning and maybe for a little bit I did go crazy. And Bella, maybe just _once, _instead of me coming through your window to be there for _you,_ I needed _you_ to come to _me_. I wondered where the hell you were, and I was sure I was fucking insane and you were _nowhere_, Bella—"

"I thought you ditched me!"

"Why did it always have to be me coming to you? Just once, just _one damned time_- couldn't you have come to me?" Edward asked, and he didn't shout and he wasn't angry and he didn't have the bitter in his voice.

He was simply asking.

I shook my head and rolled my eyes and licked the corner of my mouth where a tear had stalled.

"I didn't know you wanted that," I whispered.

When I finally looked over at him, I saw him for what I should've seen back then. A tall, handsome boy who never said much or asked for much but _needed_ much, nonetheless.

Did I drop the ball on him? It had never occurred to me, not once.

I was, after all, the possibly pregnant girl, so didn't that mean that he should've come running to me? What a selfish asshole I was.

Or.

"We were fifteen," I shrugged. "We were young, and were probably messing around with stuff we had no business messing around with. Obviously. We couldn't handle it. We were young; neither of us was at fault."

All of this time I thought Edward Cullen was sent to teach me a lesson. After it was over, and I had cried and had a pained, broken heart, I remembered thinking to myself, _Well, Bella. This is what you get. This is why you don't go around fucking your hot, rebellious best friend when you're fifteen. This is why they say you don't know what love is when you're young._

And maybe all of that was true. It's just that I'd never thought about the consequences Edward must've dealt with. I'd just assumed there weren't any for him.

"I didn't mean to make it worse," he said after a pause. "I thought that after all of that, you just didn't want whatever it was that we were anymore."

Then it was my turn to pause. I stared ahead, looking at nothing but seeing (or rather, feeling) a barrage of stuff- images, or more like impressions- of how angry I was, how hurt and sad and just torn I had been. Now I was feeling like it was all wrong, that maybe my memories of what had happened and how it had gone down were _not right_.

"Maybe our timing was all off," I said after my brief glimpse into the past. "Maybe it was for the best." I swallowed down hard and blinked to clear my watery vision. "I mean, we didn't know what we were doing anyway. In over our heads and all that." I could see him in my peripheral vision. He was looking down and nodding.

"Probably. But…" He seemed to falter a bit, and his brows knitted together as he softly said, "But I'm older now."

"So'm I," I mumbled.

"I still don't have all my shit figured out," he said pointedly, his eyebrows arching up.

"Me either."

"But I'm closer, I hope."

"You're doing really well, I think. For what it's worth," I said.

Edward laughed really quietly then and looked up at the sky.

"Well. I was. But I don't know anymore. I think our current situation kind of voids out any kind of normalcy I thought I might be having."

I smiled and used the back of my hand to wipe at my nose, which I was certain was bright pink and awful-looking now.

"Anyway," Edward sighed. "You were with Newton for awhile. He treat you ok?" It sounded like saying the word "Newton" really bugged him, and I secretly felt glad. It bugged me, too. Maybe we both knew the Newton situation had just been a… I don't know. Revenge, or whatever the word was that was less harsh. Maybe a "Ha! See? I'm okay." Whatever the word was for _that_.

"Yeah. It was fine. It was nothing," I shrugged. And it was.

"Crowley, too?" He twirled some grass between his pointer finger and thumb, pulling out a clump and getting some sod with it. He studied it for a second before tossing it over his shoulder.

"Yeah." God, I had almost forgotten about Tyler Crowley. That had been like, a weekend. Not even including Sunday night.

He looked down at the grass and nodded, pursing his lips. I took a breath and let it out, not really wanting to continue, but if we were going to do this, then we'd really have to do it. Like… air it all out, or something.

"So. Did Tanya and Jessica and Lauren and Victoria and Kate and—" God, there were others. Weren't there others?

"Ha ha, okay. I get it." He smiled without humor until he looked into my face, then his smile turned real.

"Did _they_ all treat you ok?" I asked.

"Yeah," he shrugged.

"Well, good."

"Ok. Well, that's that," Edward said, then he threw his keys in the air and caught them.

And you know… he had a point. About our past, I mean.

Why did I always expect him to come to me? Maybe it was time to be brave. I mean, I ripped off a pharmacy. Grand theft isn't nearly as vomit-inducing as taking a chance, though.

"Are you close enough?" I blurted out, then immediately scrunched my eyes shut. Stupid, stupid. I heard the dry rustling of grass and cautiously opened one eye. Edward was scooting forward a little and he almost fell over, but he caught himself by sticking his arm out and balancing on his fingertips- all the while looking confused.

"Uh. Is that better?"

I almost laughed. Leave it to Edward to provide unintentional comic relief during one of my more mortifying moments. "No. I mean, are you close enough to figuring shit out now? So that maybe… because, I mean. I am. Closer."

He smiled half a smile and reached out to tuck a hair behind my ear. He must've done that a lot when we were… _We_, because the dozens of images that slid through my head at the small touch made me feel so good that I almost choked on my own saliva. He leaned in and kissed me, soft and good and not long enough.

"Are you asking me if I want you?" he whispered, his lips close to mine but still so far away.

"Angela would say I'm crazy for doing this again," I whispered back.

"Angela is in trouble for being sexually active," he mumbled, his lips moving softly to my jaw.

"Doesn't mean she's wrong," I said with difficulty, because my body was all tense with the remembering as he brushed my neck with his thumb and then kissed before the burn went away and it was just like before only it was now, it was good, and the sun was hazy and lazy and just… so good.

"Why do you always make me fall for you?" I whispered before I could self-edit. I always seemed to be saying things that were true before I'd decided if they were true.

"Can't help it. I hate leaving you alone," he mumbled and one of his hands went up the back of my shirt and I pressed my lips against his shoulder.

Youth be damned, I'm taking everything I want.

Isn't that what this whole thing is about, anyway? It wasn't _his_ fault he was young when all of that stuff went down. And it wasn't mine either. It was like… extenuating circumstances or whatever. Both of our fault, neither of our fault. The past, so long ago but not really, a blip on the radar but like, a blip the size of a really big whale. I mean, what was I supposed to do, let it dictate how I acted for the rest of my life?

My hands found the sides of his neck and he pulled on the belt loop of my jeans.

He kissed me again soft and dry on the corner of my mouth and just like that, I had something to lose again.


	11. Chapter 11

**we love you all. thank you. –j&w**

For the first time since we'd started this crazy trip, I found myself in the very back of the van. Emmett and Jasper had a decent setup back there, and Our Alice had left a few chick mags and a couple bottles of some cheap-o brands of nail polish scattered about.

I sat between Edward's legs, my head under his chin and my back to his chest. He had one hand under my shirt- intimate but not like, petting or anything. I had his other hand grasped tightly in mine. I was holding it still so as not to make too much of a mess as I painted his pinky nail this cool shade of black that shone dull metallic green in the light.

My boredom won out over his protest.

Being with him like this again wasn't the shock to my system I'd always thought it would be. But that's the difference between reality and fantasy, I supposed.

It wasn't disappointing, though. It was better than I ever thought it would be. It was like… a relief? Or like things had finally fallen back into place after being _misaligned_ for so long. The rightness of the situation was like when you just _know_ something is missing from your desktop or your dresser or whatever, but until you find that it had fallen behind the other books or down on the floor and you put it back in its rightful place, you don't feel completely comfortable. Then you pick it up, dust it off, stick it back, and nod to yourself that everything is well again. No big deal, no ceremony involved.

It was kind of like that.

"Tell me things I missed," I whispered to him, scrunching my nose and inspecting the polish job. I used the edge of my thumbnail to correct an errant smear of green-black polish on the side of his nail. Rosalie was driving and Emmett was passed out and I was pretty sure Our Alice and Jasper were doing some below-the-waist groping. This was as close to privacy as we were gonna get. Not that it mattered if the rest of them heard us.

We were, after all, a combined force.

"What things?" he whispered back, and I knew without looking at his face that his eyes were closed.

"Everything," I shrugged and focused on painting his ring fingernail next.

He sighed and I thought he wouldn't say any more, but he did after a few seconds.

"Well… the day-by-day things we would've talked about are gone now. Like the crappy cafeteria food and how Mr. Banner got shit canned for lewd conduct and how Yorkie threw up in the McCarty azaleas."

"I know."

It was quiet for a minute and I softly blew on his two green-black nails while he breathed steadily underneath me.

I smiled and said, "Did you know that Yorkie threw up not because he was drunk, but because Lauren Mallory kneed him in the balls for grabbing her tit?"

"I did not know that," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. He shifted me a little in his lap before continuing. "My dad pulled my mother out of three different mental rehab programs. He thinks nothing is good enough, I guess. And I told him… I told him that maybe yanking her around like that was making her crazier."

"Makes sense," I whispered.

"He tossed me out of the house after I said that."

"What?" I gasped, sitting up and twisting around to look at him.

He shrugged, like it was no big thing that I never knew he got kicked out of his own house. "Not permanently, obviously. I was only gone a few nights. It was the middle of last year. I crashed with Jasper, and when that got to be too much I went to Emmett's, and then Tanya let me stay a night or whatever."

"Oh."

That _bothered_ me. Was he freaked out during that time? Mad? Sad? How did I not know _this_ one, and did he sleep in Tanya's bed with her? I briefly wondered if maybe Angela had known and hadn't told me. She always knew stuff like that. It'd be just like her to try to keep something like that from me, and I was simultaneously annoyed at her for it and touched that she would always have my back. Then I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn't even called her, but I knew that whatever she was doing, she'd already forgiven me. Angela was cool like that.

After a slight moment of awkward silence, I took a breath and ignored the Tanya piece of information.

"Why do you think he kicked you out?" I asked.

"That's funny," Edward mused, pulling his hand from mine to inspect my progress. He put it back down and squeezed my fingers before continuing.

"What?"

"Well. Everyone who was around when that went down didn't ask _why_. They just assumed that it was a fight and I got tossed out. You're the only one who would ask about the distinction." His voice was serious but amused.

"I knew your dad well enough. He wouldn't just _do_ that after a few pissed-off words."

"Well. Anyway. I'm still not sure why, truth be told. I mean, things were tense enough anyway. I don't know what set him off- if it was that I called her crazy or if it was that I pointed out that he was fucking her up more by yanking her around."

"Yeah. I guess it'd be hard to tell. How are things now?"

"She's still crazy and he's still trying to fix what can't be fixed and I'm right here."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Eh. It's whatever. That's her fate, not mine. I know that now. And it sucks, but I can't watch him try to patch her up anymore. I needed to get out, you know?"

"But you love your mom," I said, and my voice was insistent, but I wasn't sure what it was that I was insisting on.

"Yeah," he agreed easily.

"Are you mad at your dad?"

"No. I get it. I get it now, why he does what he does. He's just desperate, you know?"

"Yeah."

"Right after we got into that fight… I threw some stuff in a bag and I went to your house."

I froze and waited for him to keep talking. He didn't.

"For what?" I asked, and I practically gagged on the surge of… _hope_ that fluttered up my throat.

"You." I took a big breath through my nose and let it out through my teeth, the air making a soft whistle through the tiny gap I had always refused to have fixed.

"Somewhere to stay?" I clarified.

"A place to stay, I had. I came for you."

"I didn't- you never came." My voice was small, and I could hear the accusatory tone and flinched, unable to stop it.

"Newton's car was out front. I didn't stop."

"Oh." Shit.

"I wasn't trying to… I just wanted you to know, is all." This time, I could hear the accusatory tone in _his_ voice.

"I would've liked to have known."

"And now you do."

"So, why were you such a dick to me?"

"Why were you such a dick to _me_?" he repeated.

"You hurt my feelings," I stated, and that was the raw, unbridled truth.

"Yeah."

I turned to the side that so my cheek was to his chest and we didn't say anything else about that, because sometimes, you don't have to say anything; you just know.

After some silence there was rustling from the seat ahead of us and Jasper's head popped over, his chin resting on the grimy white, fake, perforated leather. One lock of dirty blonde hair hung in his right eye and he squinted the left at Edward.

"There is no difference between being sixteen and being insane. _No_. _Difference_."

"Shoot," Edward sighed. "I hope we can plead 'being seventeen' in our defense trial, then."

"Don't be stupid, Cullen. Seventeen. You're a damn man. Get your shit together," Jasper grinned. He flipped Edward the bird and then saluted the two of us with it and I glanced up at the soft, lazy half smile on Edward's face. Then I gasped and felt the blood drain from my whole head.

"What?" he whispered.

"Trial. If we get caught—"

"Knock it off right this instant, Swan," Jasper shouted, getting to his knees and leaning so far over the seat that he could poke me square in the chest. Edward swatted Jasper's finger away with one hand and smacked his palm on Jasper's forehead with the other.

"I can't go to prison!"

"Edward is prettier than you. If anyone should be worried, it's him," Jasper retorted.

"You're not going to prison," Edward sighed. "I'm definitely not going to prison. None of us is going to prison."

But it was too late. I was in full-on panic mode. It was like the time Edward and I had ditched fifth period Bio to go make out in the kitchen area in the foreign language wing where we'd have "Les jours de francais" and eat quiche and stuff. It was locked up all the time unless Madame Erturk or one of the other language teachers had booked the room, but naturally, Edward had the key. We had sneaked in and were doing some first-base stuff when we heard that tell-tale jangle of janitor keys scratching at the door. I had frozen then, his hand still snaking down the front of my pants as my heart beat all crazy-like, and it had nothing to do with Edward trying to steal second. I had stopped breathing and I broke out in a cold sweat. He had sighed resignedly and pulled his hand out, then he had grabbed a handful of my hair and tugged on it gently, whispering in my hair to relax.

We didn't get caught or anything; the janitor or whoever it was kept going about their business. But I hadn't breathed properly the rest of the day and I jumped every time I heard keys. I distinctly remember Jasper obnoxiously rattling his keychain in my ear every time he came near me for weeks after that. And it was always accompanied by my body freezing, my heart rate accelerating, a cold sweat and my inability to breathe. Kinda like right now.

"I can't be locked up for life for boosting crappy Hostess snack cakes and name-brand lubricating jelly!" I said in a screechy whisper.

"I beg your pardon. Hostess is not crappy," Emmett hollered from the front seat, sounding like I'd just insulted his mom or his porno mags or something.

"Well, realistically, it wouldn't be for Hostess and lube alone," Edward said, shifting underneath me. "It'd be for crossing state lines, and aiding and abetting a mental patient escapee. And I'm sure there are warrants out for our arrest, plus we've been dodging the police—"

"Stop it," I said, putting my hands over my ears.

"It's high-profile," Rosalie started, "which means we'll be made examples of."

"Seriously, all of you be quiet."

"Jasper."

"Shut up, Alice," I spat. "We're all going to prison. We'll never see each other again— any of us! And I'll have to wear my hair in one of those tight jail chick buns every day and I'm a cop's daughter! Do you know what they _do_ to cops kid's in prison?"

"Do you?" Edward responded, and he was doing that thing where he was trying not to laugh, but I was having none of it.

"Well. I don't know either, but it's probably horrible! And let's say we _do _get out after like, twenty years— our whole lives will be ruined, wasted in jail, and when I get out I'll look all hard and prison-like with one of those teardrop tattoos under my eye because I don't think this is Camp Cupcake material and I'll have to get a job at like, Wal-Mart and not even in customer service! They'll only trust me to be a greeter— I'm going to be a fifty-year-old Wal-Mart greeter with a teardrop tattoo if I ever get out of prison and for what? I mean, I'm a nice girl! I wanted to go to college and plan a wedding and maybe have kids, but maybe not, I mean, having the option is nice and all and now it's all ruined—"

"Bella. That's silly," Edward said, actually laughing now.

"Yeah, Bella. Teardrop tatts are for when you kill someone," Jasper said, half his mouth curling into that insolent grin that I used to find hot until, well, he started speaking.

"Shut up, both of you. Edward, Jasper's right! You _are _too pretty for jail! Some convict is going to fall in love with you and I'll have to hone my gin rummy skills and learn how to bench press and practice my Wal-Mart wave."

"Did she say 'gin rummy'?" I heard Jasper say, and Our Alice confirmed it with a short nod, popping around the seat to pat me on the head.

I yelped as I hit the seat in front of us with a thud and Jasper caught Alice as she fell backward when the van came screeching to a halt.

"None of that has happened, Bella, and you can't possibly know it will," Rosalie said, turning around in her seat.

"Yeah, well, I think it's pretty inevitable at this point."

"But what about right now?" Emmett asked.

"What about it? It's too late to change any of this—"

"No, Bella," Jasper said, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head where he'd smacked it on the window. "Right now, it's the time of your life. If everything else goes to hell in a hand basket, right now is the best. So, listen, if you think it's inevitable, live it up _right fucking now_. Make every second count right up until you can't be amazing anymore. Life isn't gonna get any better that this, anyway."

"Seriously, dude. Do you ever _not_ sound like you're trying to impress a bunch of fourteen-year-old girls clutching copies of _Howl_? Shut the fuck up already with that Kerouac shit. And you, Bella. Stop it. Just stop it. _You're_ gold, Pony Boy." Emmett had turned the crooked rear-view mirror and was talking at me in it, but the reflection of his intense brown eyes with laugh crinkles in the corners kept me focused (and from throwing up). I nodded and swallowed a mouthful of dry, scratchy nothing. "SE Hinton was way more fly than them fucking beatniks, Jasper."

"And Kerouac didn't write _Howl_, Emmett. If you're going to insult the bohemian hedonistic ideal, at least get the authors straight," Jasper mumbled into Our Alice's messy head.

"You may wanna consider incorporating some women writers into your repertoire, you chauvinistic bastard," Emmett continued in the mirror, giving me a wink, and like that, the big hairball feeling in my throat shifted a little. I listened to the two of them arguing back and forth, Rosalie occasionally throwing in a sentence or two at Jasper or a balled-up something at Emmett as he drove. I curled into a ball on top of Edward and put my hands up his shirt.

"I want to stop at a motel," I muttered into his warm chest.

If he's going to have a boyfriend and I'm going to have to get tattoos marking me as someone else's property, then there was something I had to do before we got caught. There was one thing I wanted that would truly make this the scariest, funnest, most reckless, most terrifying, most hysterical time of my life. And realistically, I'd like to take the memory with me to prison.

xxxxxx

Because we were planning on finding a motel with running water, it was decided that we should take advantage of it because stops like this were going to become quite rare.

So, Emmett had Rosalie pull the van up in front of a Circle K. I swallowed my misgivings at how well-lit the convenience store looked, but stopped at a stern glare from Jasper, who was climbing up front to take over as wheelman with Rosalie switching to shotgun. Edward squeezed my shoulder and I sat there, shivering and huddling and making plans for my future incarceration.

Emmett hopped into the back a few minutes later, pausing to lean forward and kiss Rosalie on the cheek before settling in next to Our Alice.

"Sorry, babe. Necessary evil," he said, but she shrugged it off.

"What?" I wanted to know, my voice rising in a panic. "What happened? Did you shoot someone?"

"Bella, for fuck's sake," Emmett said, exasperated. "I just took what I needed and winked at the cute young lady jockeying the register. She smiled at me and like, indicated that I should get on with it before I got caught, so I stopped and kissed the back of her hand before I left. I'm gallant like that. Oh, and she says her name's Sandy, and that one of us is to name our firstborn after her."

"What?" I was dazed with expecting the worst. If _I'd_ been the one to go in there, I probably would've ended up shooting myself in the leg or something, even though I didn't have a gun.

"Bella, _we're cool_. Now knock that shit off, and let's go see a man about some hot, running water."

Once back on the road, Emmett started pulling stuff out of his sweatshirt and tossing it to each of us in turn. It seemed he had grabbed us all varying shades of Clairol Grey Coverage. He kept the last for himself, holding it up to the light coming from the front windshield and squinting at it, presumably to see what color he'd gotten. Ignoring my desire to holler at him to quit distracting Jasper from keeping his eyes on the damned road, I instead turned to the box that had hit me in the shoulder on its way down.

"Trade me," I said to Edward, grabbing for his box of black with red undertones, wiping the dust off on the futon mattress beneath me.

"You have the same color," he said, twisting to keep my grubby hands off of his hair dye.

"No, I have black with blue undertones. _You_ have black with red."

"I'm seeing no discernible difference in these pictures," Edward said, grabbing my Clairol and comparing the boxes side by side.

Our Alice turned around and curled a lip at Edward.

"Jasper," she said in a sneering tone, pointing emphatically to the box he held in his left hand— the one with the blue undertones. Then she shoved the box to his chest, grabbed the red undertones box from his right hand and shoved it at me. "Jasper."

"See?" I said to Edward, who looked dubiously at the picture on the box. "Big difference. What did you get, Alice?"

She held up a box of Bleached Beach Blonde, her eyes wide and her smile stretching from ear to ear.

"That'll be hot," I told her, and it would. "Don't you need peroxide or bleach or something, though?"

"Nope," Rosalie said, patting Alice fondly on the head and frowning at her own hair dye selection.

"Jasper," Alice agreed, then peered over at Jasper's box.

Jasper was going Sunday Morning Espresso with 100% Grey Coverage, and for whatever reason, that made him laugh like a tool.

"What's so hilarious about this?" Rosalie asked him, staring down at her box of Siren Red. His expression changed abruptly, his laughter suddenly halted, and his expression turned serious.

"I don't think I'll live long enough to have grey hair," he said.

And it didn't even come out sad or worried or anything like that. It came out simple and fact-like, and it made the entire van quiet for about twenty seconds.

"Don't say stupid shit like that. You're gonna make Bella piss the van," Emmett finally said, and Jasper's laughter came back.

Our Alice simply turned to look out the window and I scooted closer to Edward.

Jasper drove in search of the seediest, dirtiest motel he could find, one in which "whoever is at the desk is so cranked on meth they wouldn't know us from Adam, their grandpa, Vanna White or Busta Rhymes."

"Or your mom," Emmett had helpfully supplied.

Now, I don't know if he was a meth head or not, but the guy who checked us into the piss-scented motel was definitely wearing a stained long john shirt, shiny blue-and-yellow basketball shorts, and had about three-and-a-half discolored teeth. He also quite casually offered Rosalie oral sex and when she politely declined, he offered it to Edward, who also declined.

Jasper asked if he had any weed, and without an exchange of words, a baggie was produced. Jasper held up a folded-lengthwise twenty, but Meth Man (or Pot Man, I guess) gave him that, "puh-_leeze_" look, so Jasper sighed and held up another crumpled twenty. The guy waved his hand, like, "keep it coming", so Jasper sighed and held _his_ hand out to Our Alice, who dug into her cavernous suitcase of a bag and pulled out one of her pill bottles, the old one that only had two pills left in it. She slapped it into Jasper's hand with irritation and he tossed it to Pot Man, who swirled the pills around a bit before nodding and tossing the bag over. As an afterthought, he slapped some Zig Zags on the counter, and Jasper saluted him with a tight smile as we all hastily retreated from the dingy and cramped "lobby", Jasper slamming the sliding glass door a little too hard. I looked back and saw our new friend holding a pill in each hand up to the light, squinting and grinning like he'd just won the sweepstakes or something. At any rate, it was safe to say that this guy wasn't about to report anything, and even if he did, no one would believe him.

So, with our rumpled bags and our hair dye boxes in tow, we all retreated in pairs to our respective rooms.

"If at any point things start to look suspicious and we need to make a quick escape," Jasper said as he jangled the key into his room lock, "there is no plan. The only plan is to not leave anyone behind, ya hear me? If one of us goes down, we all go down."

"And now Rosalie's ready to go down. Good day, gentlemen," Emmett said, and dragged Rosalie into their room.

We continued walking down the hall, me avoiding black gum spots and other questionable stains on the Berber-carpeted hall. Our room was the last one on the left; Edward put the key in the lock, and out of nowhere, I got nervous.

"Why are you nervous?" Edward asked, stepping into the room.

"Who says I'm nervous?"

He turned and put both of his hands over my fidgeting fingers, then looked me square in the eye.

"You're going to make me talk first, aren't you?" he asked.

"Well."

He groaned, dropping his bag just to the right of the doorway and kicking the door shut after me. As he started unbuttoning his pants, I made for the bed. I was about to sit down when all those YouTube videos of Luminol and blue lights on hotel coverlets popped into my head, so I peeled the 90s-printed germ factory off and sat on the edge of the bed, looking everywhere but Edward while twisting my fingers.

Edward put his hands in his pants and leaned against the door, his head thumping on the laminated "In Case of Fire" emergency instructions with a flat crunch.

"Just say it," he said in a terse voice, and when I sneaked a glance in his direction, I saw that he was intently studying the ceiling. There were more questionable stains up there than on the carpet. Gross.

"If we do this and then get separated, I might die." I took a huge breath and silently let it out.

"You won't. And we won't get separated."

"Promise?"

Edward walked to the edge of the bed where I was sitting and squatted so that we were at eye level with each other.

"Don't make me make promises you know I can't keep, Bella. Just don't. I don't want us to get caught and go to jail. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn't happen, but I'll be totally honest with you. I have no idea how else this could possibly end." I opened my mouth to interrupt, but he put two fingers on my mouth and stopped me. "What I _can_ do is try my damnedest. And, well… I hope that's a good enough promise for you."

And it was.

For him to try his best was all I could ask of him; of _anyone,_ really.

"Okay," I said, and I kept it that simple.

He tugged up at the hem of my shirt and I pulled it back down.

"Bella." I stifled a laugh because he sounded like he was chastising me or something.

"I've gained like, five pounds since the last time we… did this," I said, getting nervous again.

"Did what?" he asked, all innocent-like.

"Five pounds on someone as short as me is a lot," I said defensively. "And it's probably more like eight."

"Are you being serious right now?" he asked, resting his elbows on my knees.

"Yes! My ass is bigger—"

"I won't look at your ass," he said, his soft laughter flowing across me like the first time you dip your whole head into the bathwater.

"Yes, you will."

"You're right, I will. And it's a great ass. I've gained weight, too, you know."

"Yours is all… hot, man-like muscle."

"Yours is all hot chick stuff."

"I haven't done this since… you. What if I don't know how anymore?"

"It's like riding a bike," he grinned.

"Last time I rode my bike, I broke my wrist."

"Well, I promise I will not break any of your bones."

I rolled my eyes and leaned back on my elbows; he leaned forward, so I put my foot on his shoulder in a whacked-out attempt to gain some distance.

"I'm more worried about my heart," I said. He frowned a little bit at that, but then turned his head to study my leg. He stuck one finger out and started tracing little circles around my ankle bone, concentrating on the task like… I don't know, like I'd fall apart or something if he didn't.

"Don't be worried. I'll take very good care of it."

"I'm in love with you all over again, Edward."

He looked over at me and smiled this big light but dark smile, like he was fresh from the worst kind of fight or just got his own personal miracle or like he'd just fallen in love again, too.

Then my legs were pulled out and I was flat on my back.

He hovered above me, his hair tickling my forehead while we both laughed like idiots for no good reason, trailing off after what seemed like hours but was probably only a few seconds.

He ducked down and pressed his lips under my chin while I shrieked out a laugh and grabbed at his shoulders.

When my hand rested on the crown of his head and my neck had been sufficiently worked, he looked up at me, smiled, and slid his hand in my pants and it was all just so familiar and new and crazy that I felt this overwhelming sense of "been here, done this" and a faint, faint tinge of "oh dear Lord, what the hell are we doing?"

He propped himself on one elbow and I watched his eyes watching me, his shoulders shifting as his fingers got reacquainted with, well, below-the-waist me. His smile broadened, showing his perfectly crooked cuspids that I always thought looked kind of dashing.

"Very nice, Swan," Edward whispered, and that's when I let my eyes close and my head fall all the way back. His fingers, his breathing; all of it was lazy and slow. He gave me a slow work up, until everything that started out as a pleasant tingle caught fire.

"Edward."

I opened my eyes and he tossed his shirt somewhere over my head. His arm went behind my neck and I was first sitting up, then on him. My ankles locked around his waist and I kissed him hard and he kissed me back even harder. I pulled at the hair on the back of his head so I could get at his neck. He pulled on me too, and then… we went at it.

It was sloppy and sweaty and full of embarrassing half-sentences and strange noises and errant limbs. I was much too loud and he whispered when he said anything at all, which wasn't much; only a very, very dirty word toward the end.

When we broke apart it was upper-body only; either we were both too tired to really move or didn't want to or maybe a bit of both. I was so… _relieved_ by this turn of events that I didn't even have a proper freak-out when it occurred to me in the back of my mind that we hadn't used protection. Then I had Emmett's voice saying something about stealing some Plan B next time and I giggled, and then Edward looked offended, so I finally climbed off his lap and stuck my hand out, meeting his darkened gaze until he lazily smiled at me in return.

I held his hand while we walked the three steps to the bathroom where we shared a toothbrush and soap under the rusty water of the shower. I reached up and gave him a shampoo Mohawk while he brushed his teeth.

He randomly poked his finger at my soapy body parts.

When we stood side by side facing the stream of water, he grabbed my hand.

"Nobody's gonna stop us," he said, suddenly sure.

"How do you know?"

"How could anyone stop this?" he asked, and our fingers entwined tighter together, despite the soap and water.

"What about promises you can't keep?" I asked.

"Yeah, well. I'm keeping this promise."


	12. Chapter 12

**sorry, this one's a bit short. it was the best cut-off point, though. we'll have more up as soon as wtvoc gets off her ass and finishes her part!**

**thank you all for your lovely reviews. you're making us grin! and this time we've got more teasers all prepared, so you won't have to wait so long…**

**we ardently admire and love you all, j&w.**

Edward and I were standing side by side, looking at our reflections in the cracked mirror on the motel bathroom wall.

"Yours is hot. I look like… like… cleavage-less Elvira," I said.

"At least you don't look like you should be wearing skinny jeans and eyeliner," Edward snorted, turning his face side to side, checking out his new hair color.

"You do not," I mumbled. He didn't. He looked sexy with black hair. More dangerous and even more reckless, if that was possible. And besides, it was necessary, especially for Edward. Bronze isn't exactly a common hair color.

"We look like we're auditioning for the new _Addams Family Revue- Live_!- an off-Broadway production," he continued, finger-combing his hair to, I don't know, test how well he could still do his trademark bed head thing or something. I knew he didn't do it on purpose, but I liked to pretend that he did so that I felt like he had flaws.

"Stop preening."

"I don't preen." He sounded mildly offended and continued to turn his head side to side. He then licked both of his pinkies simultaneously and used them to smooth down his sideburns, crinkling his nose and leaning closer to the mirror to check the results.

"Jasper preens. Stop being Jasper."

"That was low," he said to his own reflection, then he stood up straight and nodded his head once.

I touched my own foreign-looking hair and then, for reasons I couldn't even fathom, I was crying.

Wordlessly, he put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him, using his sleeve to wipe under my eyes.

"Your cleavage is perfectly in proportion to your body," he said.

"Oh, so since I'm so short," I sniffled, "it's natural for me to be flat-chested."

"Yes. Anything above a handful is a waste, anyway. I don't like being wasteful."

"Don't mock me right now."

He sucked in his left cheek and put his arm around my neck, bringing me closer to him.

"Do you wanna go home?" he asked, gentle and earnest, like that was even an option. "Because if you're done, we'll figure it out."

"No," I said. I wouldn't risk everyone else by being that selfish, and really, I wasn't even crying because I wanted to go home. Maybe it was just all of it. All of the running and everything that happened between me and Edward and I kind of missed my pillow and my own toilet, and I'd probably never even see them again.

Edward yanked at the ends of my hair and grinned a sad, lop-sided grin.

"It's not so bad. I think you look hot and hella pretty. Rakish, even. Not at all like you scorn Hot Topic and secretly want one of their shirts."

I tried to laugh but ended up choking on the snot running down my throat. I put my face in my hands and sobbed instead. I heard Edward sigh and a second later, he put his arms around me. I clung onto him, gasping and feeling sick to my stomach.

"Shh, " he said softly into the top of my head. "We're just tired, Bella. The days are running together. We're only tired, is all," he whispered. "We're still okay."

"Are we?" My voice was muffled and shaky, and I pulled my face back, taking several stuttering breaths before I could feel my heart slow. I tried to swipe at my nose, but he was holding me so damned tight that I couldn't move, so I gave up struggling and leaned against him again. I sighed big and deep and listened to him breathe, a faint wheeze deep in his chest from all the stupid smoking sounding so _Edward_, so oddly comforting, and like that, I calmed down.

It was a moment before he spoke again. "Whatever happens to you happens to me, Bella. And I'm not about to be _not_ okay."

"Yeah."

"Don't be scared," he whispered. He didn't sound scared or worried, but he did try to sound reassuring, and that comforted me more than anything, even more than his body pressing in all around me.

"It's hard." I closed my eyes and smiled, feeling the crunch of cold, drying tears on my face.

"Don't be scared. Because I won't let anything happen to you. Nothing's gonna happen to you, or to me. To any of us."

I nodded and wrapped my hands around his neck, and he hunched down so that the height disparity wasn't so bad. I sniffed a bit into the hollow of his throat before kissing the still damp skin there. He straightened up and I wiped my face onto his shirt.

He leaned over and swiped some scratchy toilet paper from the roll on the wall, balling it up and putting it in my hand. With one finger he turned my chin up and nodded once.

"I'm glad this part is over," he said, decisively.

"What? What part?" I asked, working part of the tissue up my leaking nostril.

"The part where you suffer from an onset of sudden and extreme paranoia leading to an onslaught of crying."

"This makes you glad?" I asked, trying to widen my puffy eyes.

"I said I was glad it's over," Edward clarified, then he looked over my shoulder to check out his hair again. "We all knew it was coming, and now that it's happened we can resume our regular non-scheduled illicit activities."

"Knew it was coming?" I repeated dumbly.

"You do this," Edward shrugged. "You freak out, cry, and then get over it."

"I do not—"

"You do. Sorry, babe. You're that predictable. Remember in seventh grade when we had to dissect frogs? You freaked out for two days, cried, then promptly got over it. Or when Charlie started dating Sue Clearwater. Or the time right before you gave the green light on oral sex. How about the senior white water rafting trip when you were sure you were going to die on—"

"I cried at home! You couldn't have possibly known about that one!"

"Okay, that one I was bluffing on. But I was right, wasn't I?" He smiled down at me, all smug and right. I sighed deeply and felt a little bit better about everything.

"Yeah."

"Because this is what you do. Now you've done it, you're over it, and we're good to go." He let go and turned me around so that we were both facing the mirror again. He used a pinky to make a part in my hair off to the side and smoothed it all down, then finger-combed my bangs into an uneven fringe.

"This is a little different from dissecting frogs, don't you think?" I asked, incredulous and loving the feeling of his fingertips on my scalp.

His face screwed up into a thoughtful expression and he paused for a moment before saying, "The difference is… this time, you have a guarantee. I'm telling you, you'll be just fine."

"How? How can you even know that?" He walked up to the sink and braced his arms on it, leaning forward, I assume, to better inspect his highlights. His face was inches from the mirror and his breath fogged it up a bit as he spoke to my reflection.

"I just do," he shrugged. "I know because if we get caught, I'll say we kidnapped you and then I'll plead insanity and it'll work because my mother is crazy." And he was totally nonchalant as he said this. How could he just drop shit like that on me and expect it will be okay?

"But we—"

"Stop it." His voice was soft but firm. I sighed again and allowed his certainty to be _my_ certainty.

"Okay."

I stepped forward and rested my cheek on his back and linked my arms around his waist while he kept on inspecting his hair in the mirror. My eyes closed and we stayed that way until Jasper showed up, snaking his arms around both of our waists and laying his own cheek on my back.

"We're not that kind of group, Jasper," I muttered.

"Don't be nasty, Swanson. I wouldn't dip it in even if Cullen hadn't just pulled out."

I made a sound of disgust and stepped back, shoving Jasper off of me. I turned and grinned at his Espresso-colored hair.

"It suits you."

"I know, right?" Jasper asked. "I was born to be a brunette. Wait'll you see Alice. She's 'Papa Don't Preach' Madonna."

I clapped my hands in front of me and rushed out, leaving Edward and Jasper in the bathroom.

The door to Jasper and Alice's room was open, so I pushed and found both Alice and Rosalie facing each other- Alice dancing in place and Rosalie with her arms folded and her head cocked to the side.

"Jasper," Alice breathed reverently when I walked in. She walked over to me on her tiptoes and pulled a lock of hair out on each side of my head, Pippi Lockstocking style. Her nose crinkled and she threw her arms around my neck and said once again, "Jasper," right into my ear. I smiled uneasily.

"Thanks, Alice."

"Wow, Bella. You look like a chick I wouldn't wanna fuck with if I ran into you in some seedy bar," Rosalie said. "I mean, I'd fuck with you, but I was speaking in general terms, you see."

"Thanks, Rosalie. Your hair is… oh my God. Oh my God! You look like Jessica Rabbit!"

"I do not," she said matter-of-factly, but then she looked directly up and smiled, and I noticed that there was a mirror above the bed. She pursed her lips and winked at her own reflection. Alice laughed gleefully and kept on bouncing, twirling around me while Rosalie kept on puffing up tufts of her hair with her palm, all the while looking straight up at herself.

Emmett suddenly burst in and appraised all three of us with his hands on his hips. His hair was like… Spike from Buffy white. Like a bad bleach job, sort of dirty and streaked with dark at the roots that were probably going to turn all yellow in a day. And of course it looked awesome on him.

He took two steps into Alice and Jasper's room and then stopped, staying stock still. His face took on a contorted look of rage and he bellowed like he was calling the number or plays or whatever it is that quarterbacks do, "The fuck!"

"The fuck what?" Rosalie asked, primping with her neck craned up, not even one bit perturbed by this new disturbance.

"Whitlock!" roared Emmett, and a few seconds later, Edward and Jasper appeared in the doorway. Jasper had a switchblade out (where the hell did one find switchblades nowadays?) and Edward had one fist raised, the sinewy veins in his arms standing out against his taut and tanned skin.

"The hell, Emmie?" Jasper said, slightly out of breath, which made Emmett's face turn dark with even more rage.

"Don't. Don't do that, you fuck. You rat fuck. How dare you."

"Emmett," I said, "what on God's green Earth…?"

Everyone had frozen in place- Edward and Jasper still at the door looking ridiculous, Alice mid dance step with one hand on my elbow, Rosalie still looking up at the ceiling. Emmett was still, managing to glare at all of us. Then he slowly raised one meaty arm and pointed at Rosalie's reflection.

"You. You. You've got a mirror on your ceiling!"

"And…?" Jasper said, neatly flipping his blade shut against the denim on his thigh. Edward relaxed and grinned, lowering his arm and patting Jasper's messy now-brown hair.

"Do you guys have a mirror?" he demanded of me, and I shook my head, a bit dumbfounded.

"I want a mirror," Emmett whispered, looking at Rosalie from the sides of his eyes. I had to bite the urge to laugh.

"You all don't got a mirror?" Jasper said, smiling this huge shit-eating grin. He stepped into the room and came to where Alice and I were standing.

"Look at this adorable little dollface," he said, taking Alice's hand and bending at the waist to kiss it. Ready to fight one minute, affected gentlemen the next.

"You're all idiots," Rosalie muttered, and with one last flip of her hair, she finally looked down and punched Emmett in the arm. "I'm too classy for a mirrored ceiling, Emmett."

"You may be, but I'm certainly not," he said, wrapping an arm around her waist. He kissed her noisily and she giggled madly into his mouth.

I smiled fondly, looking at the six of us. What a bunch of loons. I felt a zillion times better, and when Edward came up to me and looked down into my face, I beamed up at him, happy knowing that no matter what happened, we were all in it together. With new hair.

Sometime later we were sprawled out on the large king-sized bed watching TV, but I wasn't really paying attention. Alice was dragging a wide-toothed comb through my hair and Rosalie was reading me my horoscope from an old Cosmo that she'd dug out of Alice's suitcase bag. Emmett was busy flipping between networks, looking for news of us, but he kept pausing on a Harry Potter movie that was playing on ABC.

"Hermione's an uppity bitch," Emmett observed.

"She's hot, though," Edward replied. He was lying on the floor, tossing some balled-up (and I hope not dirty) socks in the air and catching them, but all I saw was the sock wad rhythmically going up and down, up and down.

"Dirty old man," Jasper said idly. He was sprawled out across the bed and both Alice and Rosalie were using him as a backrest. "She's like, twelve in that movie."

"Yeah? And? Now she's all sexy with her short hair and shorter skirts and bitchy attitude," came Edward's amused voice from somewhere on the floor. I hoped he'd change his shirt before we left, because I didn't even want to step on that carpet with my _shoes_ on.

"You, my friend, have trouble discerning fantasy from reality."

"Eat me, Jasper. Hermione gets hot; deal with it." Edward sat up abruptly and tossed the socks at Jasper's face. "Now pack your shit, we gotta get a move on before Bella's Oral Partner decides to collect."

In a jiff, our bags were all packed up and ready to go. We were recharged and just kind of waiting to get to whatever was coming next. Rosalie got up to go around to each room, checking to make sure we didn't forget anything. Emmett was taking his sweet time in the bathroom, claiming he'd been constipated for the last six days and he was going to soak up all the comfort of a running toilet for as long as he possibly could. Edward smoked a cigarette, sitting on the floor and leaning on the foot of the bed while Jasper poked around the room, stuffing anything that wasn't bolted down into his pockets. Alice and I were back to giving me a soothing head massage.

"Jasper," Alice commented, the comb stopping midway through my hair.

"Shampoo is already in the bag," Jasper told her.

"Jasper. Jasper?"

"Yeah. Towels, too."

I stayed focused on the TV through the plume of smoke streaming up from Edward. Now that Emmett was indisposed, we were focused on one news channel, the remote sticking out of his back pocket.

"…a new face added to the nation's Most Wanted list," the news anchor stated during a general lull in our conversation.

Immediately all of us snapped to attention. The room went ten degrees cooler as we watched, wondering whether it was one of us. Which one of us it would be. Emmett emerged from the bathroom, holding his pants up around his waist, but not moving to finish up.

I felt my shoulders relax when a picture of a well-kempt, handsome enough brown-haired guy came on the screen, his physical stats listed with the picture.

"Royce King is wanted for the alleged brutal rape and assaults of three women in the Texas area. Three women claim they were attacked by King. All three victims have been hospitalized in the past month for their injuries, one remaining in critical condition. Victims claimed that King assaulted and raped them, and each claimed to be threatened with at gunpoint. King is considered armed and dangerous, and police suspect he is responsible for at least two similar attacks in the area. The authorities are asking any unknown victims to come forward. Anyone with information about the whereabouts of King or any other information can call-."

"And they're wasting their time and tax dollars looking for _us_," Jasper said, flipping the TV the double bird. "They oughta put every resource they have into finding that sick fuck."

"They won't find him," Rosalie whispered from my left. I turned and noticed her, the only one of us who hadn't moved an inch since King's picture flashed on the screen. Her face was impossibly pale and her hands were shaking.

"Rosalie? What do you mean they won't find him?" I asked, putting my hand on hers. Her skin was icy cold and I could feel her pulse racing as I squeezed her wrist in comfort. I glanced over at Emmett, who was staring at Rosalie, his eyebrows furrowed and his gaze intense.

"I'm… I'm the only one that can. Find him, I mean," she shrugged, still staring at the TV.

"Rose?" Emmett asked from across the room. "Rose. Do you know that guy?" He was still holding up his pants but now he was standing erect, his dark eyes focused on her like… well, like they'd been since he'd first seen that billboard in what felt like forever ago.

Rosalie's head slowly turned toward Emmett and I could see the dull deadness in her eyes, which worried the hell out of me.

"He's my husband," she said simply.


	13. Chapter 13

**hiya! blame the lack of updated-ness on wtvoc, she's a lazy person. **

**we're dearly sorry some of you didn't get review replies; we've been trying, but ffnet has been a little failure-bound lately on that front. sorry!**

**note****: we were a little shocked how many of you thought rosalie was the murderin' type. oh, sure, it's obvious in hindsight; we were both just kinda like "wow. that's… wow."**

**oh, and while we're making notations, there was a mention of no condom a while back. that doesn't always lead to pregnancy. yeah, it's irresponsible. but the intrepid six is also robbing liquor stores, so we'd say irresponsible and unsafe sex is the least of their worries. don't worry, we're not making it an intrepid seven. neither jandco nor wtvoc endorses unprotected sex OR thievery. or backseat sutures. or pink sno balls, for that matter –j&w**

Like an idiot, I glanced down at Rosalie's left hand, like maybe I hadn't noticed a ring this entire time or something.

Jasper flicked off the television with one decisive click then stood in front of all of us, his eyes going from Rosalie to Emmett and back again.

Edward just kept on smoking his cigarette, like nothing monumental had just happened whatsoever. I would think he hadn't heard what Rosalie just said, but when I looked down I saw him shake his head a tiny little bit, the black strands of his hair swaying about his forehead before he took another hit off of his cigarette.

Emmett stood in the doorway, still holding up his drawers and I braced myself, waiting for his rage.

But it never came, or rather, it came; just not in the way I had anticipated.

"Is he the one that hurt you?" Emmett asked, his voice eerily calm.

"I only have the one husband," Rosalie snapped, and I cringed, moving away from her without actually meaning to and immediately feeling guilty for doing so. It wasn't that she seemed annoyed or even mad, just… defensive. Wounded animal-like. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know how to react in the situation we suddenly found ourselves in, and my automatic response was to shrink away. Sorry, Rose.

"What do you mean, _hurt_ you?" Jasper asked Rosalie, but he wasn't looking at her as he said it. His eyebrows were in a high, straight line across his forehead, his chin tucked down an inch or two, and he was looking pointedly at Emmett, which was Jasper's version of "what the fuck" without words.

"Jasper," Alice said, barely whispering the word. She put an arm around Rosalie, who started at the touch and then looked down fondly at Alice, smiling and looking like she was the one reassuring the troubled-looking Alice. I finally reached out and put my warm, clammy hand on Rosalie's knee and she turned her maternal concern face at me, patting my hand with the same level of fondness in her eyes. I smiled back at her, glad to be a family to this girl who I just knew was about to tell us a really, really shitty story. I turned back to the guys; Edward was lighting all the matches in one of the motel's matchbooks one by one and Jasper and Emmett were just about to have a "who's more pissed" contest.

"I think it's pretty obvious," Emmett said, gesturing toward the TV and scrambling for the waistband of his pants as they started falling down.

"Hell," Edward mumbled, watching as the last match burned down to his finger. He dropped it into the little tin ashtray that was full of other matches and somehow stubbed his cigarette out on top of the mess.

"You _knew_?" Jasper asked Emmett. "You knew she was married. You knew. Don't you think this is the kind of information that we all need to know?" I was amused at how indignant he sounded. Jasper had always been a bit on the self-important side, but I sort of had to agree with him. I mean… we'd done things together. Stuff that like, bonded you together. And we knew things about each other, even if we didn't necessarily talk about them. Like how Alice was probably crazy and Emmett was a klepto and I was neurotic and Edward had a shitty father and just… I was with Jasper on this one. One of us was married? It just didn't seem real yet somehow seemed more real than all the rest of it combined.

"No," Emmett said simply and after flipping the little zipper pull on his pants a couple times finally started to zip up his pants.

Edward started to rub his eyes with the palms of his hands and Not Alice said nothing but pointed a finger at Jasper.

"No?" Jasper repeated. "We need to trust each other! How is this not fucking obvious?" he shouted, kicking the rickety nightstand to punctuate his question.

"Jasper," Alice admonished, and I knew she was actually saying his name that time.

"Alice!" he said, his voice lower but still urgent. "I'm just trying to look out for everyone-"

"Stop it," Rosalie said, to no one or to all of us. Her voice was dull, flat. None of that sultry business that was her normal tone. She stared ahead, one arm still around Alice. "There are things about my life that I don't go broadcasting to the entire world. I told Emmett because… because… well, because he needed to know. Because I wanted him to know. Because I felt like I owed him some kind of explanation for why I am… the way I am."

"Rosalie. Don't. You don't have to-" Emmett began, but she cut him off.

"No. I want them to know. Jasper is right. There are things that you all should know. Especially now."

My hand reached down just as Edward's reached up and behind him and we wound our fingers together. He didn't turn and I didn't come down from the bed, but our hands stayed clasped. Jasper pulled out the one dilapidated chair and flopped down in it, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Alice kept one arm around Rosalie and reached for Emmett, who sort of shuffled over and allowed her to hold his hand. He squeezed gently and then leaned against the door frame, shoving his hands in his pockets and staring down at the floor. There was a silent thrum to the air, the impulsive beat as five people waited expectantly, dreading what was coming and needing to hear it all the same. Finally, Rosalie started talking, her voice quiet at first and gaining in strength as we listened without interrupting.

"When I met Royce I was seventeen. He drove a nice car," she shrugged. "He had nice clothes and he had just bought his first house. He was only twenty-two. And… those things mattered to me then. I don't know, I grew up without, you know? And I don't want this to sound like a whiny poor girl trying to reach above her circumstances story or anything. I just. I always felt like I was meant for greater things. I blame Disney Princess movies for that," she said, smiling without humor. Alice smiled encouragingly and Rosalie continued.

"Anyway, as stupid as it sounds, especially coming from the stripper you all know… I wanted those things. A nice house, a handsome guy, and a family. A girl I could give things to and a boy who'd open doors for people and charm the pants off of old ladies. And Royce told me he'd give me all of that. And he told me he loved me. I married him two weeks after I graduated from high school. It was great and then it wasn't. He told me he didn't want kids after all, and I was learning to accept that. I really was," she nodded emphatically, like she was trying to convince us, or maybe just herself.

"Then one day, he… whatever. There were other girls and he kind of just told me that this is what life is about. That if you're married and in the suburbs and happy that this is just what men do. He felt that if he provided all of the things I wanted that he should just be able to do what he wanted. Like he owned me or something. To say that I disagreed would be an understatement."

She took a deep breath and focused her gaze intently at a point somewhere above the doorway, above all of our heads. Likewise, we weren't looking at her or even each other. Like we were taking our cues from her. I for one was feeling this queasy slow boil somewhere in the middle of my abdomen. Not like I was going to vomit, but I was going to feel like I was going to vomit. Her dead expression and monotone voice as she told us about this whole other life was painful to me. I had no idea what she'd gone through. It was like this existence that I couldn't identify with, but it _hurt_ me because it hurt her. And I knew the story was about to get a whole lot worse.

"Look. He hit me. He raped me. More than… a little. I mean, it wasn't just like one time and I got clarity and left him or anything. No, I sort of went with it because, well. When things like that begin and you're not strong enough, you know deep down inside that it's wrong, but a part of you wonders if that's what you get." I hated that she wasn't getting emotional about this. I _hated_ it. "Eventually I wised up, but yeah. It took longer than it should have, I know that. I left with nothing on my nineteenth birthday. Shortly afterwards, I met all of you."

And that was it. She finished her story the same way she began, quietly. No one said anything because, I mean- what do you say to that?

After a while, Jasper looked up and directly at Rosalie.

"Thank you for telling us," he said. "Now where is he?"

"Why?" Rosalie asked as Alice rubbed circles on her back.

"Why? Because we're going to kill him," Jasper said decisively. There was a half second of stunned non-reaction before my eyes snapped up and met his.

"What?" I shrieked, and Edward yanked on my hand before I could get up and start freaking out. He really _did_ know me well.

"Nobody is going to kill anyone," he sighed. "Geez, Jasper."

"And why the hell not?" Jasper asked, his voice all calm and reasonable. "That guy has no business being alive, and we take care of our own."

"Because, dude. If we kill someone, even this royal asshole, it turns this whole thing of ours into something else entirely. And I'll be honest," Edward said, "I can't handle that shit."

"Puss—"

"Don't," Edward warned, getting to his feet. He let go of my hand and crossed the room to stand in front of Jasper, and I mean like right in front of him. They were the exact same height and Edward got right in his face, their noses actually touching. His voice was quiet, but we all heard it. "No one is going to fucking murder someone." Without backing off he turned his head and called over his shoulder. "Now Rosalie. Where is this guy?"

"Why?" she asked cautiously, her voice finally losing that dead monotone.

"Because," Edward shrugged, "We're gonna beat the ever-living shit out of him until he _asks_ us to kill him."

"Hells yes, boys. We're gonna have us a good ole fashioned reckoning," Jasper said, pushing Edward away with his palms and then rubbing his hands together with childlike glee.

"Hell no," Emmett said from the doorway. "_We_ nothing. I want this for myself."

"Um, screw all of you," Rosalie said, sitting up straight. "Obviously, I get beating rights. I'll need you three to hold him down for me, though." I sat there with my mouth slightly open, my body jiggling as Rosalie suddenly moved to action, jostling the bed and bouncing around with activity. Has everyone gone mental?

Emmett, Jasper and Edward glanced around the room at each other, these slow, mischievous smiles starting to take over their faces, like they just got away with seeing boobs for the first time or stealing a beer from dad's fridge.

Then, in this big rush of adrenaline and testosterone and excitement, there were fist bumps and boy hugs and weird war cries and I even think I heard the phrase "warrior poets" being bandied about.

Our bags were gathered up and the door opened and it was all so dizzying and so quick. I was left sitting on the bed by myself, wondering what in the hell just happened.

With the others gone to head out to the van, Edward stood in the doorway, my bag strapped across his chest.

"Did you wanna stay and find out about the desk manager's oral skills or…?"

"Edward. So. I know you have a hard-on for fighting and I know that, this time it's honorable or admirable or whatever, but the news said this guy has a gun and I mean, we all know how things escalate or whatever and oh my gosh. Please don't?" My chest was heaving, and not just because that had been one crazy-long sentence.

Edward chewed the corner of his lip for a second then narrowed his eyes at me.

"Sorry. No dice."

I didn't know if I was surprised or not at all surprised.

"Edward. This is… this could get real bad, real quick. This is the line that we shouldn't cross. This is exactly where we're in over our heads."

"Bella. I've gotten in many, many fights. Out of all of them, only a few people actually had it coming. This one takes the fucking prize."

"Edward."

"Bella. It's how I am and it's what I do and this isn't breaking news to you." He hooked his thumb under the strap of the bag and ran it up and down; I wondered if it was giving him rug burn.

"This isn't some fight near the bike racks after school, Edward!"

He fixed me with a dark stare and crossed the room, putting his hands under my arms and pulling me up, then he looked me square in the eye, even if he had to bend his knees a little to do it.

"Bella," he began quietly. "I want to do something good. I want this trail we're leaving to have something worthwhile on it. I want fucking _reckoning_ for this guy, and I want to be a part of what brings him to it. I want this. I understand if you don't. I understand if you're scared. But please, don't ask me not to make my own way. Because you know I'd never do that to you." He kept his eyes fixed on mine, and I sighed heavily. Yeah. I did know all of that.

"What if making my own way meant blowing truck drivers on the shoulder of a freeway for ten bucks a pop?" I challenged.

"I'd buy a truck and hit up the ATM," he answered without missing a beat.

"Fine. Then I want in, too. I'll hold his leg down or something," I bluffed.

"Fine," Edward shrugged. "I want you to be unhurt and safe, but I'll be damned if you're not going to be my equal, too."

And that's when something changed. I was a part of his team. I was the other half of his team. One half of this partnership within a partnership. Edward's other half. He was quite literally my partner in crime, and so I couldn't very well just send him out there alone without my help.

"Well. If you're going to do it, I'm going to help."

Edward put his hands on my face and raised his eyebrows.

"How's that?" he asked.

"I'm gonna be a motherfucking soldier about it," I nodded. "I'm going to just… man up and make sure nothing happens to you."

"Oh yeah?" he said, a lazy grin lighting up his face.

"Yeah. Don't worry Edward," I smiled. "I got your back."

He kissed my lips while he was still laughing, but he wasn't understanding that I was serious.

"I'm serious," I mumbled around his kiss. "I'm in just as hardcore as you are."

"I hope so," he said, then put his arm around my neck and we walked out with our heads high and our chests proud and this tough, unfamiliar to me kind of confidence.

And that's how we started making our way to Hedley, Texas on a mission to find and bring to twisted justice one Royce King.


	14. Chapter 14

**such goings-on! We apologize for not responding to any reviews. fanfictionnet is still being a jerkface. but thank you all for your kind words! –j&w**

"He's gotta be in Hedley," Rosalie said from the driver's seat. "His douche bag friends still stay around there and whatnot. No one purposefully goes to Hedley. Everyone around there would know him, but no one would turn him in."

"Hedley it is," Emmett said from the passenger seat. Somehow I had stumbled my way into the van, but I felt a sort of calm as I settled down on the bench seat.

I watched Rosalie mouth the words "thank you" to Emmett, but he just put his hand over her lips and turned the radio up.

Later on, I found myself staring out the window, watching absolutely nothing speed by. Like, the countryside or roadside or… is Texas considered "the Plains"? Were we driving through the Plains? Whatever, it was so boring that despite Rosalie driving as fast as the van would go (a kicking 45mph, I'd discovered), the blur of brown-gold unvarying dried grass just looked all the same. Sometimes a lone house in the distance or like even a horse would break up the landscape, but other than that, it was all same-ness. It didn't make me feel sick to look out the window, so I just sat there with my chin in my hand and my elbow on my knee, sort-of-absently picking at the scab that had formed on my hand. We'd been in the van for about eight hours; Edward had been drinking for the last two of them.

"We need us a solid plan," Jasper said after an hour or so of silence, his head in Alice's lap. She was busy making teeny, tiny braids in random places all over his head. She had nothing to secure them with and they didn't unravel. Gross.

Edward picked up my other hand and tried shoving it down his pants.

"I thought," I said, yanking my hand back, "that the plan was to find the dirtbag and beat him to a pulp."

"It is," Jasper said, "but if he's got a gun, we'll need to take him by surprise. You think he'll be in a specific house, Rosalie? Out at a bar? Or…?"

"I think," Rosalie said, "that we'll stalk the bastard until we can strike."

"Eff yeah," Jasper agreed.

"We need ski masks!" Emmett announced, slamming his fists on the dash.

"No on the ski masks," Rosalie said. "Too conspicuous for Hedley."

"But beating a guy to a pulp and then leaving him in a pool of his own piss, blood, and vomit isn't?" Emmett asked.

I blanched, actually _blanched_ at that description. I didn't even know blanching was an actual thing people did outside of bad fiction until then.

Contrary to my blanching, Edward looked positively thrilled about this description. I made a mental note that we might have to talk later about his love of gore and violence.

And then, rather abruptly, Rosalie stopped the van, took the keys from the ignition, picked up Emmett's hand, and turned to face all of us.

"This won't be good," Edward sighed and sipped delicately from the vodka, his pinky and ring finger up in the air. I picked up his arm and draped it around my neck.

"For awhile there, I was pretty sure I was unlovable," Rosalie said, tucking her hair behind her ears, just diving right into the heavy shit. Her voice was again devoid of emotion. "He treated me like shit, he told me I was shit, and I ended up leaving to become a stripper. You guys came around just when I really, really needed a family. I'm so in love with all of you that it's just too disgusting to even talk about. Especially you," she said, putting her hand in Emmett's. He beamed at her and even though I knew she'd get pissed at me if she knew, I felt my eyes go teary. Rosalie didn't want our pity. She just wanted our presence. Our together-ness.

"We love you, too, Tits," Jasper said. "Can we get back on the road now before—"

"I'm turning him in," Rosalie said.

It was quiet for a few seconds before Jasper sat up from Alice's lap, running a hand down his face and sighing before he exploded.

"Wait, wait. Has the saline gone to your brain? Turning him in would mean going to the cops, who, in case you hadn't noticed, have been kind of keeping an eye out for us. Walking right into the police station with a half- corpse might not be the most intelligent idea. Vee-fucking-toh."

I watched Emmett, who didn't look the least bit surprised, flip Rosalie's hand back and forth in his, his eyes on her feet.

"Rosalie. Why?" Edward asked, cocking his head to one side, and he seemed genuinely curious. The funny thing about Edward was that even though you'd never find anyone who'd be more likely to just jump into any random fracas, he was so mellow in general that like, he'd avoid the fight if there was a good enough reason. Like a _Deadliest Catch_ marathon or persistent heavy petting or this one time, both.

Rosalie squinted her eyes toward the back of the van then looked straight at Edward.

"Because he did terrible things to me, Edward. Worse than I can even say out loud, and I'm no bashful girl. We could kick the shit out of him, but one of his son-of-a-bitch friends would help him out. Then he'd be out there hurting more people, and I can't live with that." She swallowed heavily and Emmett was about to interrupt, but she put a hand on his arm and he stilled.

"Because, Edward. I want to go to court and point right at him and tell anyone who will listen that the bastard deserves to rot in prison for life. Because you won't let me kill him and because if I don't, then I am nothing more than this stupid little girl who let him turn her into a crying, egoless victim. I want to go back for him and get mine. I want him to see my face and I want him to say _I'm sorry Rosalie._ Even if I don't believe him and even if he's not. I want him to feel pain and I want him to look at me while he does. I want to hand him over to his fate and wave goodbye as they cart him off. Got it?" Her eyes were glorious- blazing and furious and I found that I couldn't remember what color they were and I had never, ever felt more proud of anyone in my life.

I also realized how much I wanted to hurt the jerk who had hurt this flaming, glorious woman. But if _she_ wanted to take the high road, then I wanted that more than the hurt. And I could sense that almost everyone in the van was feeling the same way, too.

"If you're going," Emmett started slowly, and my eyes closed. I knew what was coming. "I'm coming with you."

It was quiet for about two seconds.

"Shit. When did all of you lose your damned minds?" Jasper asked, rather loudly.

"No, Emmett," Rosalie said, ignoring Jasper. "I'm… in love with you. Actual, real love. And that means that I want what's best for you, not for me. That means I want you to run away with these really fucking awesome people and know that you saved my whole life. And you guys, I won't say a word about—"

"We need a phone," Emmett said. "Right now."

"Jasper. Jasper, Jasper, Jasper," Alice said, ticking off Jaspers on her fingers as she spoke, her voice quiet and agitated.

"Of course I'd do it for you," Jasper whispered to Alice, who shrugged, having made her point.

"Why do you need a phone?" Edward asked Emmett.

"I'm going to negotiate," he said. "I turn this cocksmack into the proper authorities in exchange for immunity for me and Rose. I've got a few petty thefts under my belt. He's a serial rapist. I think I can convince someone it's a fair trade."

"No," Jasper said simply.

"I didn't ask," Emmett countered. He scratched his nose and stared at Jasper, who stared right on back, not blinking.

"Emmett, no," Rosalie said. "I don't-"

"I'm doing it. And I didn't ask any of you for permission, so," Emmett shrugged.

"Look," Rosalie started. She looked terrified despite the fiery glow that still lit up her eyes. "I, uh. I've never been in love. Before you. And I know now that love means wanting only the safest, best thing for someone. And so. No. I won't let you do it. Emmett, I know I owe you the world. My life. It was you who gave me the confidence to do this and made me think that just maybe I'll be okay. That just maybe I'm worth a damn-"

"You're definitely in love with me?" Emmett asked.

"Yeah," Rosalie shrugged, and her face actually turned red.

"Then I'm definitely doing it," Emmett said, a big goofy grin on his face.

"You're definitely fucking not," Jasper snapped. "Let's say you call and try to negotiate a deal. Well, what if they shoot you down? Then we're all fucked. They have a decent lead on us and we don't get to go near King. Use that gigantic fucking head of yours, McCarty."

"They won't-"

"You can't call the damned _FBI_," Jasper shouted.

And then Emmett turned in his seat to fully glare at Jasper, and I held my breath. I'd forgotten how freaking intimidating Emmett could be when he was pissed. And was he ever _pissed_.

"I'm the big, drunk jock. I'm the fun guy and the fall guy and I don't mind being those things. I have been since the fucking fourth grade for you, you slimy fuck," Emmett told Jasper, his voice low but his eyes bright with rage. He looked around at the rest of us, minus the dimpled grin. "But if any of you were ever going to pick a time to trust me, now would be the time to do it. Because I'm doing this."

With that, Emmett ripped open the passenger door, climbed out, then kicked it shut. Then kicked it again.

We all sat in the van in the wake of Emmett's outburst in total silence. Edward cocked his head to the side in lazy consideration, not surprised or shaken by Emmett. He lit a cigarette and laid his head back on the seat.

That's when a few things occurred to me.

There was a very real possibility that two of us might come out of this unscathed— heroes, even.

There were two of us who might actually _get the glory_. And maybe this whole thing has just been leading up to Royce King and his demise. Maybe it was all fate.

I climbed over Edward's lap and rolled the van door open. I climbed out and walked toward Emmett, who was standing in the middle of the road kicking at a gravelly-looking pothole.

"I don't want to hear about how we're all going to prison or die, Swan," he sighed. He turned his back on me and pulled a faux Zippo from his back pocket, flicking it on and flipping the lid shut; flicking it on, flipping it shut. I listened to the rusty hinge click and croak a couple of times before I walked over to him. I crossed my arms over my chest and planted myself right in front of his big damned body, bracing myself for what I was going to say.

"In the third grade," I began, my voice cracking a bit. I cleared my throat and took a breath before plunging in again. "We were at that one park with the tire swing and the old baseball diamond, remember? We were playing kickball with that one yellow ball you swiped from the playground and someone accidentally kicked it over the fence. And it went into that yard with the German shepherd. The one we all thought ate human guts, remember?"

"Yeah," Emmett sighed, looking up at the dark sky. "It was that weird Garrett guy. The one who ate like, powdered tempera paint."

"Right," I laughed. "So anyway, you went right over the fence like it was nothing and got the ball back. And then in seventh grade, Angela and I stole a pack of cigarettes from your dad's Gas-n-Go and the cashier busted us. And you said they were for you, but they weren't."

"It was easier for me to get out of trouble than it would've been for you two. Besides, Angela looked like she was going to pass out she was so scared."

"She passed out after we got back to my house. Anyway, last year, in gym, Tyler Crowley fake fell into me and grabbed my boob and you told him you were going to break his fingers if you ever saw that shit again."

"That kid's a pervert. Look, this has been a great trip down memory lane, Swan, but-"

"There's a point, Emmett," I sighed. "You've always been a hero. Maybe not in big, dramatic ways… but still. It's kind of who you are. And I love you. And I'll miss you like mad. But you're Rosalie's hero now. I trust you to do this." Emmett took a long, shaky breath and breathed it out slowly.

"You do?" he whispered, still staring at the sky.

"I really do," I confirmed.

"See?" Emmett gave a half-hearted grin. "I make good decisions. Bringing you with us was an awesome idea."

I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him tight while he continued to stare at the sky.

"Who will steal everything for you?" Emmett whispered.

"Ah. We'll be fine."

"Bella?"

"Hmm?"

"Am I being a traitor? Or. Is it wrong to leave you guys-"

"Hey, man. You're in love. How can that ever be wrong?"

Emmett nodded.

"I'm going to rip that guy apart, Bella."

"I know."

I closed my eyes and leaned on Emmett and when I opened them, Edward was standing there, half a cigarette hanging from his lips, his hands in his pockets, watching us.

"If I ever see Tyler Crowley again, I'mma fight him," Edward said, squinting the one eye where the smoke rose over his face.

xx

By the time Edward, Emmett and I got back into the van, Jasper was in the driver's seat, his hand clasped with Rosalie's while Not Maybe Definitely Our Alice sat on the floor between the driver and passenger seats, underneath their clasped hands.

With all the doors shut and all of us sitting in silence, Jasper put the van into gear then turned to look over his shoulder at Emmett.

"You're going to do this, so I will be right alongside you doing it, too," Jasper told him. "It's not that I doubt you, Emmett. It's that this will be the end of the road for you. Maybe for all of us. But either way, there will be glory. And I can't stop the glory. That'd just be blasphemy."

Emmett smiled and leaned up to wrap his massive hippo thigh arms around Jasper's neck.

"I'll miss you too, Scarecrow," Emmett mocked and actually kissed Jasper right on the cheek.

"Sit back, bitch. We have a phone to find," Jasper said, boxing Emmett's ear. And then we proceeded to make very daring, very stupid, possibly very brilliant plans.

_One: __Steal ourselves a phone.__ Steal Royce's phone._

_Two: Locate Royce. _

_Three: The FBI call had to happen before the Physical Decimation of Royce King's face and kidneys if he was in a public setting because someone else would surely call before we could have a chance to negotiate. However, if he was on his own or with one other person, we could have the blood/vomit/piss show __before__ calling the police. This would've been ideal as no one likes time constraints._

_Four: If negotiating doesn't work—_

"It _is_ going to work! Don't even write that one down," Emmett barked, grabbing the little sparkly notebook Alice was jotting the plan in.

"Jasper."

"But we don't even _need_ a precaution. It'll jinx it," Emmett countered.

"Jasper," Alice sighed, and tapped her chin. "Jasper."

"Thank you," Emmett told Alice, and he gave her notebook back.

xxxx

**wtvoc wants it known that she listened to "goodbye yellow brick road" by elton john, "to lose my life" by white lines, "peek-a-boo" by siouxsie sioux, "genius of love" by tom tom club, and "ulysses" by franz ferdinand off of her b4g playlist while finishing this chapter up. it seems pertinent for some reason.**


	15. Chapter 15

**a biggish one just for you guys. thank you so much for your kind words (omg ff's new review reply process sucks, so sorry for not replying to you guys with previews). special thanks to eksmith, tkmoon, and evilangel for invaluable services rendered.**

**xxx**

**we would like to put a bit of a warning on this one- it gets violent up in here. like… the pre-readers were a little shocked at how violent (and so were we, truth be told). **

**this isn't our usual fare. we understand that you're all kind of expecting the beat-down, but it might be a bit more than you expected. if you don't like serious, graphic violence, please wait for the next chapter. we'll put a short recap in front of it, minus the descriptive language. thank you- j&w**

I must've dozed in Edward's lap because the next thing I knew, I was looking up at Edward who was looking down at me with a disgusted sneer, his finger poking my cheek.

"Rise and shine, Bell la la laa."

"What?" I mumbled.

"Wake up, you." I could hear his amusement permeated by exasperation and something else. "You drooled all over my legs."

"No I didn't. Shut up," I muttered, swiping at the drool on my cheek and sitting up. Edward arched his hips at me, chasing my face with his apparent semi. I pinched his thigh and flashed him a warning look, but he just grinned at me, that narrowed-eye sex look making me feel flushed and slightly more awake.

"What time is it?" I asked thickly, turning away from his horniness. Suppressing a yawn, I stretched and took a deep breath. It smelled like… drunk. "Edward?" I ventured.

"Hmm?" I looked back over at him and saw that he was leaning back, his legs straight out in front of him and his arms stretched out behind his head.

"Are you wasted?"

The corner of his mouth slowly turned up and his sharp, pointy canine teeth gleamed dully in the moonlight that filtered through the filthy van windows. He sat up and leaned toward me, resting his forehead on mine.

"We're in Hedley," he whispered, his breath a cloud of Jack Daniel's finest.

Blinking away the rest of my sleep-induced grogginess, I took in what was going on around me.

Our Not Maybe Alice was driving the van and we were creeping slowly forward in what appeared to be a suburb. Tidy but small cookie-cutter homes sat side-by-side, but they were hard to make out because the headlights on the van were off. Emmett was riding shotgun and Rosalie sat hunched between the two front seats, whispering directions to Alice.

Freaking Jasper was on the other side of Edward, his face practically smashed up against the window like a kid looking at lights during Christmas, this expression of anticipatory _joy_ on his face.

"We're here?" I croaked. "Already?"

"Not soon enough," Jasper mumbled in a happy whisper.

Edward's leg bobbed up and down, booze and excitement running through him. I reached a hand out and put it on his thigh in an attempt to calm him down, but he tried to strategically place it in his crotch area, so I quickly snatched it back and gave him a withering look. I'd say it was inappropriate for him to be thinking sex when he was drinking and looking for a fight, but let's be honest- the three things tended to go hand-in-hand with the guy. After all we'd been through, I'd be a hypocrite if I complained about it.

"He's in a house?" I asked instead of complaining.

"We're hoping," Edward said. "Rosalie says his buddy has a house back here, and if he were hiding, it'd be here."

"Okay," I said, and closed my eyes and tried to just not freak out. I was in this. I wanted to be in this. None of us would get hurt, the odds would be in our favor, and everything would be splendid. Just because we had a large group. A good, large group.

Rosalie was pissed. Emmett was pissed and huge. Jasper was just flipping crazy enough to do anything and not give a damn if he got hurt. Edward… well, I've never seen Edward lose a fight. It was his thing.

"Turn it into something else," Edward told me, before sipping from the whiskey bottle.

"What?"

"That nervous, anxious, trying not to puke feeling you're having right now? Make it something new. Make it rage or confidence or anything else that's fucking proud. And use it."

"Edward—"

"Bella. We're the _Youth In Revolt_ kids," Edward said by way of explanation. I mulled over that one for a second or two.

"We own everything. We take what we want," Jasper said, looking over his shoulder at me. "_We're_ calling the fucking shots tonight, Swan. Don't be nervous. Be a fucking champion."

I blinked twice.

"This is it," Rosalie said, her finger pointing to a house on the left. "That's his car in the driveway. Idiot." She scowled for a moment and then started self-consciously primping her hair. She stuck her hand out and Alice produced a compact from her lap. Rosalie looked into it and pressed her lips together twice before nodding in satisfaction. I suddenly noticed she had changed into a man-eating outfit- red short shorts and a white halter top. Blue denim espadrilles that I would've sprained my ankle in if I merely tried them on. She would've looked amazing if it weren't for the grim, determined expression on her face.

The van crept up to the curb before stopping smoothly when Alice shifted to park.

"Let's go," Jasper said and reached for the door.

"What? Let's go? I mean, that's it?" I sputtered. "There's no plan?"

"Of course there's a plan, Swan. Kick the shit out of this guy. Don't kill him. Call to negotiate."

"I. Well. Oh. Okay."

Rosalie, Emmett and Alice hopped out the front, Jasper rolled open the sliding door, and just like that, we were out.

And things took an impossibly more surreal turn... because I discovered with surprise that I _wasn't_ afraid.

The six of us, shoulder to kind of shoulder (because Emmett was really tall and Alice was really short and the rest of us were somewhere in between) walked up to a decent-looking house with beige siding and a Taco Bell-style roof and some kind of big, black, shiny, fancy SUV in the driveway.

We looked strong and smug, like invincible vigilantes or a motley crew of dejected super heroes. We felt that way, too.

I could feel it, while all of us marched forward in silence- this electric, buzzed, bound-for-glory feeling that made me strong and almost giddy and ready for a fight.

Rosalie stood in front of the rest of us with her arms on her hips and just stared at the door for a second. I was unsure about what she'd do.

Knock?

Do you ring the doorbell when you've stopped by, uninvited, to kick someone's ass and turn them in to the police?

Well, apparently, you bust right in, because that's what Rosalie did.

"Honey!" I heard her shout as she stepped into the foyer. "I'm home!"

She was two steps ahead of us, her breathing loud and fierce as her head swiveled, like she was _hunting_, like she was waiting for her prey to show his face. It was terrifying. She was beautiful, she was alive. She was vengeance incarnate. I wouldn't have traded places with Royce King for _anything_.

"Rosie-" Emmett started and went to grab her hand but then, Royce King came around the corner and everything, _everything_ froze for about half a second.

His face went from confusion, to shock, to complete and utter _oh shit_.

Half a breath, half a heartbeat. We all stood stock still, the silence scary and thrumming and full of the promise of _something_- and then Rosalie ran forward in this crazy must've-been-a-stripper-move straight out of a Tarantino movie. She lunged herself directly on to him.

Her legs wrapped around his waist and she was a mass of hair and flying arms, punching him in the side of the head and his neck, over and over with a brute force that I wouldn't have imagined even Rosalie to have possessed.

Jasper took a step forward but Emmett grabbed his elbow.

"Let her," he said softly, his eyes roving as he followed her every movement. Edward watched, his eyes ablaze with fight and fascination.

For a few seconds Royce just took it, but he soon recovered from the shock of _seeing_ his estranged wife and then from being _beat_ by his estranged wife. He tossed her to the floor, which may have been the second biggest mistake of Royce King's life.

The boys descended immediately, _pounced_ even, like they were just waiting for their turn.

Emmett gripped Royce's throat and picked him up an inch off the ground as he walked forward, slamming his entire body against the closest wall.

Alice and I got Rosalie to her feet but she shook us off and stomped over to where Emmett had Royce pinned.

Jasper and Edward were leaning with their sides against the wall on either side of Royce, like they were about to have a friendly, relaxed conversation. Jasper had one of those Dum-Dum lollipops, the stick hanging out the side of his mouth. I could see a few more of the small, white sticks poking over the edge of his shirt pocket and Edward nonchalantly reached over Royce's struggling body and into Jasper's pocket with the backs of two fingers, fishing around until he pulled one of them out. Stupidly, I focused on figuring out what flavor he'd managed to score rather than watch what was going on with the beat-down. Royce continued to struggle and I watched as Edward neatly pinched the wrapper and pulled it off to reveal a pale pink sucker. Ah, watermelon.

"I know what you do to women," Jasper said conversationally and quietly to Royce, the lollipop moving from the left to the right side of his mouth. Jasper wasn't looking at the guy, either. Absurdly, he had the electric blue cheap-o sunglasses on, but he seemed to be checking out the walls, and I followed his line of sight and saw that he was focusing on a water stain in a corner near the ceiling. Like what he just said wasn't an implied threat.

"Get the fuck out," Royce choked out— literally choked, because Emmett still held his throat. Emmett's face was a mask of scary, terrifying, horrific rage.

Edward put one hand on Royce's shoulder and punched him in the side with his other. His eyes bulged and he tried to talk again, but Emmett pulled him forward then slammed his head back against the wall.

"_And_ I know what you did to my good friend Rosalie," Jasper continued, switching lollipop sides again while I silently congratulated Alice on his tongue skills. "Now. Tell her you're sorry." He sounded like he was chastising a small child who forgot to say "please" when you poured it some milk.

"I…" Royce gasped and Emmett squeezed his throat tighter, making it impossible for him to speak.

"I'm sorry, what was that? I can't hear you. You really ought to speak up." Jasper leaned forward expectantly, his ear right next to Royce's lips. "You're not saying anything," he sighed. He straightened and pulled the lollipop out of his mouth, bringing it in front of his face. He stuck it back in his mouth and crunched the remaining candy piece then flicked the stick somewhere over his shoulder. After taking one of those put-upon heaving breaths, he leaned over Royce's body and Emmett's arm to talk to Edward. "He's not saying anything."

Royce once again tried to speak, only it was at the same time that Emmett slammed his head and Edward punched his side.

"Stop," Jasper shouted, punching the wall right near Royce's head. "Ignoring," another punch. "Me." Another punch.

I noticed that things weren't as violent as I thought they'd be. But then I noticed that Royce's lips were turning blue.

_Oh_.

I supposed thinking you're going to die by slowly running out of air was pretty good, as far as torture went.

And then I said a quick thank you to God that I must be in so much shock that I could still stand up straight. I _hated_ gore and violence. I couldn't even watch _Saw_. Or any of the sequels.

"Edward?" Jasper asked.

"What?" Edward played along.

"Did you know if you kick someone in the kidneys enough, they'll piss blood? And probably die."

"I think I _do_ remember hearing that somewhere," Edward replied.

"You think it's true?"

"I wouldn't know," Edward said.

"Well. There's one way to find out," Jasper shrugged. "But. Would that even things out?"

Jasper tapped his forefinger on his lips and pretended to contemplate, and then he actually started pacing.

"Mr. King, how should we go about evening things up, do you think?" Jasper asked. "How do you propose we make this right?"

"Fuck. Off," Royce kind of whisper/mouthed. Emmett must've loosened his grip.

Edward's eyebrows raised in amusement. He was still standing next to Royce, his head leaning on the wall right next to Royce's.

"Oh," Jasper said, mocking being taken aback. Then he put his hand on his belt buckle. "That would work, I suppose. I mean, it _is_ what _you've_ been doing."

Edward rolled his eyes while Royce's widened. Emmett slammed his head against the wall again, probably just because he wanted to.

"Stop sweating, Mr. King. I wouldn't grace you with my dick if there was a gun to my head and warm Jell-O in your shorts," Jasper said.

"What does that even mean? That's vile," I muttered.

"You know what else is vile, Swan?" Jasper asked. I started because I hadn't realized I'd spoken out loud.

"Uh."

"This guy."

Then Edward's fist slammed into Royce's temple, and pretty instantly a dark red streak of blood snaked down his face as he tried to yell out.

Edward held up the van key in his punching fist and shrugged. Jasper kicked Royce in the side and then Edward punched him in the side twice, hard and fast. The muscles and tendons in Emmett's forearm tensed impossibly more and weird noises were coming from Royce.

"Wait!" Rosalie shouted, "Just… stop."

Edward's shoulders sagged in disappointment and Jasper sighed and leaned back against the wall. Emmett didn't move an inch.

Rosalie slowly walked forward to stand right in between Emmett and Royce, then she gripped Emmett's wrist. He didn't move.

"Emmett. Please," Rosalie said softly; a request, not a plea. Without looking at her, Emmett nodded and allowed her to move his hand away and down to his side.

Royce didn't move; he was surrounded on all sides, anyway. His hands immediately went to his already bruising neck while he coughed and wretched. Rosalie crossed her arms and waited. Emmett pressed up against her back.

"Bitch," Royce strangled out in this raspy, scratchy whisper, his eyes wild and wide and directly on Rosalie. Emmett came at him again, _hard_. With such force that Jasper and even Edward stepped away. Once again Royce's feet were off the floor, Emmett holding his neck with one hand while his knee went right between Royce's legs. And Royce made a sound I'd imagine a breathless, dying goat or something would make.

I briefly put my hands over my eyes but heard Edward's laugh over Royce's awkward cries.

"Shut up," Rosalie snapped. "My friends want to kill you. And I don't know how long I can hold them off, so just shut up and listen to me. Now- tell me you're sorry." Her voice had started off as loud and demanding but turned into tiger-lying-in-wait, the dangerous purr probably accentuating how scary her eyes looked in that moment. I couldn't tell because she was staring right into Royce's eyes. He was kind of glazed-looking and there was blood running onto one of his eyelids and he sagged in a way that couldn't be natural.

"I'm sorry," Royce finally whispered.

"Tell me you regret every second of it."

"I do," Royce whispered, falling forward to put his hands on his knees, nearing the pass-out point.

"Whoa," Jasper said, as Edward caught him and stood him back up. "We're not quite finished here yet. Be a man."

Edward patted Royce's cheek a little too hard then flipped his fingers under his chin to make him look up again.

"Tell me you're a vile piece of shit and that you don't deserve to be buried in the fucking ground where you'll only disgust the maggots, and then tell me I was always too good for you and even though you tried like hell to make sure I'd never, ever be okay again and you tried like hell to ruin me for fucking life… tell me that you know I'll be okay."

"I know—"

"I never really loved you," Rosalie interrupted, more to herself than to Royce, like she was having some kind of epiphany. She smiled then, a small, private smile, like none of us were standing there in anticipation of what she was saying. "For such a long fucking time, I thought I must be the biggest fool alive for loving someone that could treat me the way you did, you short-cocked piece of pig shit. But, as it turns out… I never fucking loved you. Ever. I loved your house. I loved your car. But Royce. Darling, nearly-dead husband, I never loved _you._ Because you're absolutely _unlovable_. You're some kind of human abomination and _no one_. Not one person, or hell, even your fucking _dog_- would miss you— would give a flying fuck if you disappeared forever or if your head turned up in the middle of the desert. No one would cry. No one would miss a damned thing about you. Tell me I'm right."

"You're—"

"Shut up," Rosalie said, her private little smile gone to be replaced with a thin-lipped one. I shuddered at the steely resolve I heard creeping into her voice as she spoke her next words. "Beg me. Beg me to forgive you."

"I'm begging you…"

"No," Rosalie said bluntly. "I don't."

And then, pretty Rosalie's eyes went dark with anger and revenge and she took a step closer, then another. Royce tried as best as he could to meet her eyes, and Rosalie did something I didn't expect at all.

She used her fingers to gently push some of his sweaty hair from his forehead then slowly ran her fingers down his face.

And then she covered his mouth and his nose with her hand. And held it there.

Before his hands could yank hers away, Jasper and Emmett yanked them back and Royce's eyes shot open, panicked while he thrashed his head as best he could… but Rosalie was tenacious in keeping her hand right where it was.

Expressionless, she just kept right on smothering the guy. My eyes were wide and my stomach started getting that terrible plummeting feeling and my knees started to shake. I looked around the room, at each of the others, at Edward, wondering how long they were going to let this go on.

"Jasper," Alice whispered at my side, pulling my elbow, trying to be a voice of reason.

"I know," I whispered back. Things were becoming a little too… too.

I saw Edward lock eyes with Jasper while Emmett stood behind Rosalie, his hands out, ready to do _something _at any minute.

"She's killing him," Edward told Emmett, who did nothing but stare. "Pull her off!" he shouted. But he didn't wait and pulled Rosalie off himself. She stumbled back, and Edward used one arm to kind of shove her away, because she was still trying to get at Royce, who was being held to the wall by Edward's other arm.

"Can we stop dicking around now?" he asked, his voice tight, the muscles in his arm looked about ready to pop.

"Finish it," Jasper said.

Emmett's fist landed square in the middle of Royce's face. I could see Edward's dark smile before he quickly turned his back to us and the serious business began.

Rosalie stumbled back to where Alice and I stood but kept her eyes on the scene the whole time.

"Fight me, motherfucker!" Emmett shouted, hitting Royce in the face again, or what must've been his face. I couldn't tell because his nose must've busted because everything, _everything_ was covered in blood.

Edward held Royce's head up by the back of his hair and kneed his side while Emmett carried on.

Jasper reached behind Royce and produced a wallet. He lazily opened it as if the guy wasn't being beaten within an inch of his life right next to him. Jasper tossed a few receipts over his shoulder and held up a small white card.

"A library card? What are you doing with a library card, you uncivilized bitch?" he asked, then pulled out Royce's license. "This we'll need. Because no one is going to recognize your face. At the police station." Next came a wad of bills which Jasper pocketed nonchalantly.

"Enough," Edward told Emmett, then again, louder, when Emmett didn't stop.

Finally, Jasper tugged Emmett away, whispering something quietly to him. Emmett took three steps backward, his eyes locked on Royce's sagging form which Edward was still holding up. Then Emmett turned around, blood splattered on his shirt and face, the glazed look in his eyes unfamiliar in the usually certain Emmett McCarty.

He walked right out the open front door without a word.

Edward looked at Royce, shrugged, and let him fall rather unceremoniously to the floor. Alice walked up and kicked his limp legs once.

"Jasper!" she shouted, then stomped back to me.

I approached next, and Edward watched me with an amused look on his face. I crouched down next to Royce and kind of half rolled him over, reaching in his other back pocket to grab the cell phone that I hoped would be there.

"Death would be too easy," I hissed at him, my hands shaking and my stomach queasy from all the blood. Then the coppery-sticky smell hit me and I teetered unsteadily on the balls of my feet. I felt rather than saw Edward lunge to grab me but I muttered, "I'm good." I closed my eyes and blew air out of my mouth, counting to five. I opened my eyes and held out my hand; Edward linked his fingers with mine and helped me up, allowing me to steady myself before putting his other hand at my back. I swallowed once and nodded to both him and to myself.

"I think Emmett needs this," I said after a moment, holding up the phone.

"Get up," Edward said to Royce, using his toe to nudge him. He looked like he was losing an awful lot of blood.

"Fucking useless," Jasper sighed before helping Edward pick the guy up, but it looked like something out of _Weekend at Bernie's_. There was no way the guy was conscious at all.

I walked past Alice and out the front door where I found Emmett and Rosalie on the porch, sharing a cigarette.

"You okay?" I whispered, because it seemed like I should be whispering.

Emmett said nothing, but Rosalie let out a heavy breath and nodded.

"Um. I don't think you should wait. Very long," I said, offering Rosalie the phone.

She took it and handed it to Emmett who closed his eyes, muttered a few swears, opened his eyes, flinched, and dialed 1-800-CALLFBI, the fate of so many in his hands.

I guess it was one of those things where he just had to do it. Right then, right away. Or he'd never do it at all. I sucked in a deep breath and held it. Rosalie reached out for my hand and we held onto each other. I didn't know who was shaking more between the two of us. Finally, Emmett's voice punctured the quiet that had settled on the three of us.

"Yeah," he began, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Yeah. This is Emmett McCarty. From Forks, Washing—Yeah. _That_ Emmett McCarty… uh huh. Yeah. I will. But. Listen. I have Royce King. Yeah, _that_ Royce King. Who do I talk to about making a deal?"

He stepped down from the porch and talked low and slow into the phone, wandering down the sidewalk and pulling at the back of his hair with bloody, busted fingers as he went.

Rosalie sat down, put her face in her hands, and cried. I sat next to her and cried, too. And then Alice was on the other side of Rosalie, and she was crying, too.

The door behind us opened and the screen door slammed shut. Jasper and Edward bounded around us and hopped off the porch, rushing down the sidewalk to where Emmett was still walking.

For a moment I thought they were trying to stop him or that Royce had died or something, but they eventually slowed, walking side-by-side as they came up behind Emmett.

Silently but surely, they were only trying to stand behind him for this.

And so they did.

Sometime later the three of them came back to the porch, their expressions tired, forlorn, and blank.

"So," Emmett sighed then swallowed hard. "We can take him in. And it'll be ok. My dad's lawyer got pulled in on the call. So."

Rosalie blinked up at Emmett.

"They're agreeing? To take him and let us… go?"

"Yeah. Maybe some fines or something, but. Yeah."

"Your dad's lawyer?" I asked stupidly, for lack of anything better to say.

"My dad. His lawyer. Some negotiator person. Six other people. I don't know. Hell. I don't know," Emmett muttered.

"Was your dad—"

"Pissed off but happy to hear from me? Yes."

My mind immediately wandered to Charlie and I felt a sharp, sudden pang of guilt. Crazy, uncontrollable guilt. _Oh, Charlie_.

"What about all of us?" Jasper asked.

"Said you were long gone."

"But Royce—"

"I'm hoping they won't believe him when he says me and Rose weren't alone. But. Still. You guys should go. Right fucking now. Rosalie and I have immunity. The rest—"

"Did they ask about us?" Jasper asked, rubbing his forehead, his eyes on the ground.

"Hell yes they asked. I didn't talk about anyone besides me, Rosalie and King."

"They're gonna grill the fuck outta you two," Jasper said.

"Don't tell us where you're going next if you don't trust us," Emmett said, a bit of heat returning to his monotone voice.

"We won't talk," Rosalie said. "No matter what. We just won't."

It was quiet for a few seconds while we all avoided what we knew was coming. This was the plan. And it worked. So why were we all so quiet and unsure?

"Where do you take him?" Edward finally asked.

"The local station," Emmett shrugged.

"I know where it is," Rosalie whispered.

Emmett nodded slowly and Edward grabbed my hand, and I used my free hand to grab Jasper's. Who grabbed Rosalie's. Who grabbed Alice's. Who grabbed Emmett's, who grabbed Edward's other hand.

Our heads bowed together and somehow, without looking, I knew I wasn't the only one with hot tears stinging my cheeks.

"I'll probably never see you again," Jasper said bluntly, looking Emmett straight in the eye. A weird choking sound came from me and Edward squeezed my hand. Emmett bit the corner of his bottom lip and nodded at Jasper, saying nothing. "But that doesn't mean, not _for one damned second_, that if you ever need us, we won't be there."

"I know," Emmett said quietly.

"You did the right thing," Jasper said, sure and sound, kind of surprising all of us. "And I'm gonna miss you, but hell. I'm not gonna remember you as the big dumb jock or the porn hound. Because this is the most honorable thing I've ever seen. You done good and right, Emm. I'll remember you as a fucking man that I learned a helluva lot from."

Emmett smiled a half smile and looked up at the sky.

"You were a motherfucking superhero out there," Jasper continued. "You're the bravest son of a bitch I know, and fuck. For a second there, we took over the world. And it was tops while it lasted. But now you gotta go. And I understand that. We all gotta have our thing, our own way. Our own glory."

We all shuffled closer into our small, familial circle, breathing hard and stifling cries, shoulder-to-shoulder one last time as one, our hands linked in unity.

"We gotta go," Emmett finally whispered.

We were losing them.

Slowly, one by one, we pulled apart. Jasper walked straight to the van and hopped in the driver's seat without another word.

Alice stood on her tiptoes and hugged Emmett tightly before moving on to Rosalie, taking her face in her hands.

"Jasper," she said steadily, looking into Rosalie's eyes.

"I love you, too, Alice," Rosalie whispered, her eyes glistening under the street lamps.

With that, Alice put on her sunglasses, even though it was the middle of the night, and made her way back to the van.

"Rosalie," I said.

"Bella," she sighed. "Bella, for a little while, I forgot what a self-respecting woman acts like. Thank you for showing me."

"Rosalie, you were never… you did what you had to do—"

"I don't mean the stripping. I did what I had to do and I don't regret it. Now more than ever, I don't regret it. What I meant was- that bastard bleeding to death inside? He broke me in so many ways. And for a minute, I forgot how awesome I am and what I deserve to have. But watching you stand your ground with Edward and cleaning off your forks at diners and the way you weren't intimidated by Jasper or Emmett without having to be a mega bitch… well, it reminded me of how I used to be. And how I wanted to be again."

"I had no idea I did any of that," I said, slowly shaking my head from side to side. "Well, except for the silverware in diners thing. I'm glad you picked that up because mono isn't just a kissing disease, you know."

"Bella."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. I've never had a family until this whole… all of you. You'll always be my family."

I didn't say anything. I just hugged her tightly, is all.

Over her shoulder, I saw Edward and Emmett hugging. And not one of those guy-one-armed-pat- on-the-back-hugs. Their bodies weren't like, pressed together at the pelvis or anything, but they were definitely _hugging._

"Later," Emmett said to Edward, when Edward turned to go back the van.

"Yeah," Edward said without turning around, but he held one hand up in the air then let it drop before walking with downcast eyes back to the van.

I followed him, because what did lingering ever do to help anything?

Emmett would load up Royce into the big, fancy SUV and Rosalie would sit in the passenger seat and they'd be on their own.

But as I got situated in the quiet, now-too-roomy van, I just couldn't shake this huge hollow feeling inside of my stomach. It hurt. So I just lay my head in Edward's lap and he put his fingers in my hair and we each took a deep breath.

Jasper put the van in drive, and I had that horrible feeling- the one you get when you think you left the stove on or you're forgetting something way important- times a thousand and ninety-seven. I took another deep breath and suddenly, so abruptly, I felt older.

I felt like all of us were older and aged and exhausted.

The van idled. Emmett and Rosalie couldn't have been more than twenty feet away at that point, but still, I wanted to see their faces. Or to sing a duet with Emmett. Or to sleep peacefully while Rosalie drove smoothly and quietly.

I wanted them back.

I wanted them back so much, and my tears fell on to Edward's jeans but he didn't shush me or rock me or anything.

"I know," was all he whispered.

Then the van reversed sharply and jerked forward. I sat up in the process. We pulled up alongside the fancy SUV. Jasper rolled the window down and Emmett rolled his down, too.

"Yeah?" Emmett asked.

"Arkansas right now. And if things go okay, Colorado."

Emmett blinked until the understanding washed over him completely, and one last time, under the moonlight, I saw the mischievous, triumphant dimples.

"Thank you, Jasper."

And then he was gone, the black shiny car disappearing into the black night.

And I wanted him back.

But you can't just _get_ and _take _whatever you want all the time, no matter who you are. You find things like that out when you get older.


	16. Chapter 16

**yup. been a while. how **_**you**_** doin'?**

**when last we updated (****in the 80s sometime)****, the gang had found royce and beat him up good 'n proper. then rosalie and emmett turned themselves in.**

"It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings and Swan's mama can't carry a tune, so onward we go," Jasper said, and the van accelerated, all of us flying forward a bit. Edward put his arm out in front me, like my dad used to when I first started riding in the front seat, even though I was wearing a seatbelt.

"My mom is like, a size six. She was the last time I saw her anyway," I muttered.

"Then you don't get your hips from her," Jasper said matter-of-factly.

I kicked the back of his seat while Edward did that creepy make-the-shape-of-an-hourglass wavy thing with his hands.

"My hips aren't _that_ big," I protested, double birding and putting one bird flip right in Edward's face and leaning forward to put the other to rest on Jasper's shoulder . Without taking his eyes off the road, he side-kissed my finger.

"Alice, please give your man some lip balm," I said in a weary voice. She rummaged in her bag and produced a tube of sparkly Softlips.

"Jasper," she whispered, and this time he took his eyes off the road, turning to Alice and puckering up. She smeared his lips with sparkle balm and kissed him when she was done.

"Hey, ain't nothing wrong with a nice set of birthing hips, Swan," Jasper declared, his face pointed toward the road again. Alice lifted her sunglasses and glared at him.

"Jasper. Jasper Jasper…" she sighed. "Jasper." His shoulders hunched forward a little.

"Sorry, Swan. Alice is right. Your figure is lovely. Very feminine."

"Thanks a bunch," I muttered, sulking into my seat. Edward chuckled and put his arm around me, coaxing me to lean into him. I laid my head down on the seat and the empty, sad feeling that had permeated the van since we lost Emmett and Rosalie returned. It'd been a little too quiet, a little too forced. The conversations, I mean. What's a good dick joke if Emmett isn't telling it?

Jasper tried to lighten things up by hurling insults at random, and while it provided relief from the silence and awkward pauses, the distraction was much too short-lived.

"Okay. Fuck this," Jasper huffed after a good ten minutes of AM radio. He took his palms off the wheel and swiveled around to face me and Edward in the back seat.

"Watch where you're going, dude," Edward muttered.

"Relax," Jasper replied. He lifted his elbow like a chicken wing and put it at noon on the steering wheel. Still not looking forward, he peered at us over the rim of his sunglasses.

"Listen, this sucks. Aside from Emmett and Rosalie, what are the two things we need?" Jasper asked Edward, fixing him with an intent gaze.

"To not drive off the road. Turn around, jackass," Edward drawled.

"I'll turn around after you take two guesses," Jasper grinned, then purposely wiggled his elbow, jerking us all a bit to the left.

"Or I can just knock your two front teeth out," Edward said smoothly, abruptly sitting erect and hitting my cheek with his shoulder.

"Ow," I whined (even though it didn't hurt), and he just patted my knee and shushed me.

"You're no fun anymore," Jasper said with an exaggerated pout before turning around.

"Money and morale," Edward answered a minute later, once Jasper had his hands at ten and two.

"Shit! This is why I love you, Cullen," Jasper exclaimed, pounding one fist on the wheel. "You just _know_ how I think. Let's ditch these chicks, go to Vermont, and get married. We'll make love and syrup until we die."

"Okay," Edward sighed and ran his palm up the back of my neck.

"Cheek," I grumbled, so he laid a kiss on my face and then behind my ear before continuing to rub my neck.

"Five by five, brother. Me and Alice will find a commune made up of ex-cons turned hippies and have love children that we'll raise on all organic, pesticide-free, chemical-free vegan products," I chimed in, then leaned forward to pinch the back of Alice's arm.

She didn't turn or even smile or startle, so I poked her side. She kind of turned to pat my head, then turned back again to stare out the window. I guessed she was just sad about Emmett and Rosalie. We all were.

"Fuck that. Bacon tastes _good_. Pork chops taste _good_," Jasper said, and I laughed because who doesn't love a good Samuel L. Jackson reference?

Very, very late that night we sat in a circle in an open field with a transistor radio in the mush pot, listening to fuzzy AM news. Wherever we were, FM didn't seem to be a thing.

"While details continue to slowly emerge, what is clear is that there seems to be some kind of link between the Youth in Revolt group and wanted felon Royce King. Two members of the teenaged petty theft ring surrendered to authorities last week in Hedley, Texas. The FBI released a statement confirming that Emmett McCarty of Forks, Washington and Rosalie King, estranged wife of Royce King, turned in the felon King when they surrendered. Royce King is currently hospitalized and in critical condition at an undisclosed location. Authorities are refusing to comment on his injuries, stating that any information could compromise the case. King was wanted as a prime suspect in a string of violent sexual assaults in the Texas area. The rest of the Youth ring remain at large."

"Larger than life," Jasper whispered back to the radio. Alice curled up in between his legs, staring at the radio.

"Critical condition," Edward breathed out, sounding satisfied.

"I wonder where they are," I thought out loud. "I wonder if they're okay… if it went down like they said it would."

"The news broad didn't say anything about having them in custody, but they can't just say they cut them a deal yet. They're fine," Jasper responded. Alice was deftly plucking blades of grass and building a pile on his leg.

"But what if-"

"If they weren't fine, we'd know it," Edward said. "We just would. And this is still a good thing. Em will have them running around in circles, giving us time and a bit of leeway. I believe they call it 'giving them chase.'"

I nodded, not being able to argue with that. I didn't doubt Emmett's loyalty at all.

"Speaking of leeway, we need more cash," Jasper said. He nudged Alice, who scooted forward, and stood up, brushing off the little grass stack off his jeans. He reached into the waistband at the back of his pants and for a wild moment I thought he was going to pull out a gun and I was prepared to go _apeshit_ on him when he unceremoniously dumped a pile of cash next to the radio. "We gotta stop ripping off for awhile. McCarty was the best at it and right now, we can't risk not having the best. Swan would probably die if we attempted a bank heist, Not that we couldn't pull it off, mind you-"

"Eat me," I huffed, pulling my hood up.

"I would, but Cullen would sock me in the nose in a sad attempt to defend your honor and make me less pretty than he is," Jasper said, smiling down on me. Alice rolled her eyes and started building a grass pile on his shoe.

Edward shook his head and started chucking rocks at the money. Jasper glared at Edward, Edward continued to ignore Jasper, and I was all too aware that something unspoken was passing between them.

"We have to," Jasper told Edward.

"I'm not robbing a freaking bank," I said with unease because they weren't serious, right?

"We've moved on from that idea, Swan. Keep up here," Jasper said. He jiggled his foot and Alice grabbed his ankle, leaning down and bringing her face closer to her little pile.

"We could get killed before anyone arrests us," Edward said, ignoring me and continuing the conversation that was about God-knows-what concerning… I don't know. Money? Liquor? Kidnapping? What the hell were these two thinking? Was Emmett really the glue that had held us all together? He thought dubstep was an actual genre of music, for God's sake.

"I don't even know what this plan is, but I'm already putting in my veto," I declared.

"We could," Jasper agreed, ignoring me and continuing where Edward had left off. "We could also get hit by a meteor right now. We could get picked up for that busted tail light at any moment. We could decide to say fuck this shit and join a monastery or maybe go into gonzo films. Anything could happen. But it won't if we stay ahead of the game here. Emmett and Rosalie are gone. That sucks. But we're still here and we still gotta be on top of this shit. We need money. We need the kind of morale that only terrifyingly edgyrisk-taking brings," Jasper said. He sat down again, ruining Alice's art. He lay down and Alice curled into his side, reaching across his torso to pick grass and pile it right there on his chest. He took a couple of deep breaths and I watched, fascinated, a sense of dread creeping up my throat at what he was going to say. "What we need to do," and here he paused for dramatic effect, "is to count cards."

"You want to fuck with a casino?" I blurted out, incredulous.

"Swan, you're such a small potatoes thinker. _Fuck_ a casino and a stack. I want to mess with the big boys," Jasper replied. "No casinos, no cameras. I'm talking about high rollers in shady basements. Your boy here's good enough to go pro." I swiveled around to face Edward.

"You can count cards?" I asked him. It hit me just then that despite knowing him for years and years that I didn't really know _shit_ about him. Sometimes that's awesome, and sometimes it's just downright _worrisome_.

"Edward taught me," Jasper said. "So. We go to Atlantic City or the outskirts of. We find a good, underground game, take their money, and move on."

"Ok," I said after a pause, because really. Why not? "What's the downside?"

"Getting caught counting," Edward answered. "Those boys play with big money and we're new faces. If I'm off, we're all seriously screwed. Or worse, if I'm dead on and they smell bullshit, we're all dead. Literally."

"If you keep that pretty game face and concentrate like the cheating champion you are, we're all better off," Jasper countered.

"I can bullshit through a high school game of poker when we're betting for bras and fifty bucks with a few remedial sophomores," Edward scoffed. "I can't pull that shit off in the real world."

"Are you stupid?" Jasper asked him. "Just think about everything we've been pulling off. This will be easier than taking virginity from Bella."

"I wasn't _easy_," I mumbled.

Edward narrowed his eyes at Jasper and looked at him a bit too long, something _again_ passing between them.

"Why do you want this so much?" Edward asked bluntly.

"You know why."

Edward glared at him. "Bullshit. You're hiding something. Are you going to tell me what it is?"

"I'm not hiding anything," Jasper laughed, waving his hand at the sky. "You're paranoid."

Edward's eyes flickered from Jasper to Alice, then back at Jasper.

"I want you to know I'm not buying it," Edward said. "But you're clearly desperate for this and I trust you enough to know you're not fucking anyone over. And that if you had to, you'd tell me whatever it is." There was an edge to Edward's voice, a warning. I was starting to feel uneasy, and I had _just_ gotten on board with the plan. Card sharks. Seriously, what was next?

"Whatever. You're going stir crazy. Are we doing this or not?" Jasper asked, brushing off Edward's accusation.

"I'm in," Edward shrugged coolly, but his gaze was still full of scrutiny. Jasper sat up (once again dislodging Alice's grass teepee) and pulled Alice up to her feet. He stalked off with her into the dark and as soon as I could no longer hear their footsteps crunching in the grass, I turned to Edward.

"So what's he hiding?"

"No idea," Edward answered.

"Well, he can't do that!"

"He wouldn't do anything terrible."

"But he has crazy ideas and we don't need anything crazier!"

"Then don't trust Jasper. Trust _me_," Edward said, grabbing my forearm and pulling me closer to him.

"I do trust you," I told him.

He grinned and leaned in, his curved lips right next to mine.

"Yeah? You trust me?" he asked, his whisper brushing across my skin.

"Mostly," I said playfully, barely brushing his lips with mine.

"You shouldn't. Not when we're alone like this," he said. His tongue darted out to my lower lip.

"I already willingly gave you my virtue and most of my morals," I teased.

"Dare me," he whispered, and wouldn't you know it, after all this time and everything we've shared, naked and otherwise, I got this giddy nervous feeling in my stomach and felt my cheeks go warm.

"I dare you," I told him, but I had no idea what I was daring him to do. That is, until he pounced on top of me and pinned my arms to the damp ground.

"You're _so_ scary," I said in a monotone, really enjoying his body on top of mine. He pinned both of my hands above my head in one of his, then pulled my shirt up to my chin.

"Let me look," he murmured, and suddenly we weren't playful anymore. He kind of lifted himself off of me and I kept my hands where he had them, even though he wasn't holding them anymore. And for awhile, all he did was look. Edward has seen me like this a lot and he's seen a lot of other crazy shit, too. But I'd never seen this particular look on his face.

Maybe it was the dark shadows and the cliched moonlight, or maybe it was because the only thing we really had in the whole world right now was each other. I don't know what it was, but his look was full of this intense haste but all the while biding time, looking me over for the perfect place to strike. And that predator look was mixed with innocent wonder.

My stomach fluttered with nerves- nerves of all things! I was only going to be with a boy I'd been with dozens of times. It made no sense to be nervous, but then, I suppose sometimes love doesn't make sense.

"Edward?" I whispered.

He looked up at me. I moved my hand to brush some hair out of his eyes but he grabbed my wrist, kissing it and putting it back down on the grass. Then he eased my shorts down and tossed them over his shoulder. A kiss landed on my side, then up to my neck, then on my lips.

"I don't want to be the only one naked," I said. "It's uncomfortable."

Without losing _that look-_ no crass comment or shifty grin or anything- he tugged his shirt off and put his hands on my hips. He took in a deep breath and I could just make out the glint of moon shining in his eyes.

"If we had to make it on our own, without them, we would," he said.

"I know? What… is something going on?" I asked him, because both he and Jasper had acted fishy earlier and when I'm naked in front of Edward, we usually don't talk about Jasper and Alice. Unless it's relevant to what we're doing, which, once upon a time, it was. But that's something else entirely.

"No," he whispered. He dipped his head to my shoulder. I shivered against his warm chest and pulled him down closer to me. "If we do this card thing, promise me something?" he whispered into my ear.

"Yeah. Anything," I said, putting my hand on the back of his neck.

"If something goes wrong, anything at all, you run to Charlie."

I yanked his hair to lift his face.

"No!" I shouted right at him. "We're all in this, remember? If it happens to you, it happens to me, too, and if you're worried about it, we're not doing it."

"I'm not worried," he shrugged. "At this point, it's just best to go over every possible scenario."

"Well. Me leaving you isn't a possible scenario. So shut up," I said. "And if you think that doing this is going to separate us somehow, then we're not doing it."

"Okay," he said, but he didn't look me in the eye and I didn't miss that. "Bella?"

"Hmm?"

He lifted up, grabbed my hips and turned me over so that my knees were on the ground and I was mooning the moon. My fingers gripped the grass and the earth and I braced my shoulders and back, then heard his zipper.

It was good, really good. His hands reached around and felt everywhere on me and under me, always returning to my hair, where the pull was just perfect enough for his leverage and my utter enjoyment. His kisses were wet and frequent on my shoulders and the base of my neck… but not once did he have to look me in the eye when we were like that.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

We hadn't had weed for weeks, and it was just too risky to try to find some, which was why it was so damned curious that Jasper's eyes were bloodshot and he was in an unusual state of somber-ness when he and Alice had caught up with me and Edward in the field.

"It's allergies," he shrugged when I asked him about it. That was crap. I'd known Jasper since the third grade. While I was puffy-eyed and snot-nosed on the playground, he was running around like the Poster Boy for both Allegra and Claritin-Ds. Jasper didn't have allergies. The only other explanation could be that Jasper… had been crying.

That's right.

While I was getting banged from behind in a field, Jasper had been crying. Things were getting all backwards and out of control; we were way too deviated from the norm here. How was it possible that I was the sexual Lucy Goosy, Maybe Alice hadn't put on make-up for twenty four hours, Edward was making alterna-crime plans, and Jasper had been crying?

I glanced at Edward, who was watching Jasper, but his expression remained blank. He inhaled on his cigarette, squinted one eye at Jasper, and shrugged. Well, maybe Edward hadn't gone off and changed at all.

"Okay, van it up, kids. We've got cards to count and money to steal," Jasper called out, heading toward the van. He kept a tight grip on Maybe Not Our Alice's hand.

"He's still being weird," I said to Edward.

He poked his tongue in the side of his cheek and tossed his cigarette down but kept his eyes on Jasper's back, then put his hand on the small of my back, leading me to the van.


	17. Chapter 17

**we'd like to thank eddie vedder and dean martin for this chapter.**

For days we drove silently, stopping in the dead of night for gas in places not even your worst nightmare would visit in broad daylight. Alice slept a lot and Jasper was her body pillow, which meant Edward and I drove a lot, our hands clasped between the van's captain seats. Sometimes we'd have whispered conversations about things like love, sex, and our parents. Other times we had loud arguments about Cheez Whiz and what that road sign with the squiggly arrow meant. Or penises. I felt like half the time we were talking about penises.

"But, I mean, what if you _couldn't_?" I asked again for clarification. This was the dumbest conversation I'd ever participated in and I was loving every minute of it.

Edward worked his tongue around the piece of red licorice hanging between his lips and sighed.

"If I could get it up but what. Just not, like, ejaculate?"

"Right. If you were capable of sex, but could never orgasm again, would you still bother having sex?"

"No. Yes. Yes. No, I mean, what would be the point?"

"Because _I_ still could," I pointed out.

"So, you get off and leave me with perpetual blue balls?" he asked.

"It'd be like, a favor. Wait, you wouldn't do that for me?" I asked, sitting up and glaring at him. He kept his eyes on the road and shrugged one shoulder.

"Doesn't matter because all of this is hypothetical."

"So hypothetically, what would you do?" I asked.

"In what messed-up circumstances does that even happen?"

"I'm sure that happens to men—"

"Yeah, but like, I'd never get off, ever again with no hope of it ever happening no matter what?" Edward asked.

"Right."

"Well, I'd be worried about my man parts and I'd get to a penis doctor or whatever it's called."

"Urologist."

"Right."

"You're over-thinking this."

"I beg to differ, madam. I think you're the one over-thinking this."

"Just answer the question, Claire."

He grinned at me and ruffled my hair. "Nice. Okay, so wait. I cannot come."

"Yup."

"Like, medically incapable."

"Uh huh."

"And I'd be- what. Pleasuring you while forsaking my own climax?"

"Mm hmm."

"So, I'd just frustrate myself while you get off?"

"You'd be doing it _for_ me. To be caring and nice," I sighed.

"If you cared about me, you wouldn't put me in that position."

"It's _hypothetical!"_ I practically shouted. "Just answer."

"Fine. Yes."

"You would not!"

"Oh my god. Start acting normal."

I reached over and yanked the licorice from between his teeth and gnawed on the end of it and contemplated normal.

And then I had a revelation, one that I might have bothered to have weeks ago. Because it was rather really freaking important and life-altering, but too late to change.

"We're never going to be normal," I blurted out.

"Speak for yourself, weirdo," Edward said, his voice almost hypnotic in its monotone. It was late at night and we were driving through some middle state, all the scenery the same.

"No, no," I said, shaking my head and swallowing a lump of licorice. "I mean, no matter what happens, we'll never be normal. We're like… infamous. We will probably be in jail for like, the rest of my child-bearing years at the very least, and even if we're not, what are we gonna do? Go back home and head off to college like none of this ever happened? Do you know why anyone even remembers the name Patty Hearst? And that was like, thirty years ago! We'll always just be the kids who—"

"Bella."

"What?"

"You gotta be _something_," he said, his face stony and resolute but his eyes darting at me nervously, like he was worried I was gonna blow or something.

"What does that even mean, Edward?"

"It means what the hell else would you rather be?"

"I don't know. A teacher? A botanist? A chef? A philosopher or one of those ladies who sells roses at fancy restaurants? An engineer? A mother? A diplomat? I don't know, but the point is- we kind of robbed ourselves of the possibility of anything. Or everything. Ever again." I closed my eyes and swallowed a couple of times. "Umm, pull over. I might throw up."

"Just calm down," Edward said, rubbing his jaw and darting his eyes around the cup holders, no doubt looking for his crushed soft pack.

I pulled them out of the breast pocket of the flannel I was wearing and tossed them in his lap. I shifted around and ended up sitting cross-legged with my thumbnail between my teeth, worrying it back and forth, back and forth.

"We blew our whole lives," I whispered after a minute or two. Edward didn't respond, didn't acknowledge my summation of our shit situation. He just kept driving and I kept bending my thumbnail with my teeth. Finally, after about eleven highway exits and twenty-seven McDonald's arches, he spoke. His voice startled the shit out of me, it was so insistent and angry and kind of desperate, too.

"Look," Edward said, "you made these decisions, too. We can't go back and change everything now, so I think you should hurry up and get comfortable with the choices you made. Fuck, Bella. Don't second guess shit that can't be undone. You'll drive yourself crazy." I looked at him but he didn't return the gesture; he just kept driving, his jaw firm and his eyes unflinchingly forward. Wow, he seemed pretty mad. I finally stopped gnawing on my thumb and thought about what he said and whether it made any sense, which. Well. It did.

"I _know_ that, but—"

"But what, exactly? You've done these things, so this is part of who you are now and it will only serve to mold who you will become. You want a different path, take one. But don't sit here and cry about it like you're helpless in deciding your own fate when you've been doing just that all along. I don't wanna hear it."

"Why are you yelling at me?" I said, incredulous and quite frankly, a little hurt. We were just talking about penises, for crying out loud.

"I'm not yelling, I'm conversing. You're better than a little girl who sits around and cries over spilled milk, Isabella. You did all this, so own it. And if you can't- if you think it's been a mistake- then you should stop. Right now." He pulled over to the shoulder and while he didn't jerk to a stop or anything, he might as well have. As an excuse to breathe until my heart stopped racing, I watched him for a moment before I spoke.

"I didn't mean you," I said steadily. "I didn't mean I regret you."

"I know that." He sighed and rested his forehead on the steering wheel.

"Do you?" I wanted to reach over and reassure him, but I wasn't entirely sure that my gesture would be well-received.

"Yeah."

"So, if I asked you to stop, would you? Stop with me?" I asked. My head quickly turned to see if Jasper and Alice could hear our conversation, but they were curled around like each other, both of them softly snoring.

"Well. Not until we can work something out."

"What if I asked you to right now?" My whispered entreaty sounded desperate, even to me.

"I'd ask you not to ask me that, for your own best interest," he said, then glanced at me, turning his head slightly so that it sort of rolled along the steering wheel. "So don't ask me that."

"I'll stay with you," I said easily; earnestly.

"I love you, you know?" he asked, and then he was sitting up and reaching over to grab his licorice back and just like that, I knew the dark moment had passed. My heart rate returned to normal. "I want you to be who you want to be and have the life you want to have, so don't _say_ it's shot to hell. Say this is what you want."

"I know."

"So. What _do_ you want?" he asked. "I mean, you can't say this isn't what you want. You did this, too, and I don't want you to not have a life that you—"

"I don't know. This, I guess. I mean, long term I want you. We'll figure the rest out."

"We're long term now?" he asked, the van accelerating, the dash starting to shake as we pulled back out onto the road and into the night.

"LTR. For sure."

"I doubt you'll ever get to be a diplomat. Or even a city council member," he remarked dryly.

"I never liked politics anyway. And you're right. I made these choices. Now I'll learn to work within them." We drove on in silence, a sort of contented silence. It felt like hours before he spoke again.

"And, according to Jasper, you'll always have the glory."

"Right. The Glory."

It was then we drove right past the Welcome to Atlantic City sign and Jasper made his presence behind us known.

"Well. That was touching. Thanks for letting me be a part of it," he said, reaching forward for the cigarette between Edward's lips. "I feel like this could go ménage a trios any moment. Hey. Turn left. There's this guy I gotta see."

Jasper kept giving Edward directions, muttering "turn left" or "make a right here" seconds before we would have missed the turn. Edward followed Jasper's mutterings to a T, neatly palming the steering wheel to execute his turns. Whenever I drove the van it always took a few seconds to follow my commands, but Edward made it seem like we were in some well-oiled sports car or something.

We finally made it to wherever "this guy" was, which was not in a well-lit part of town. Edward pulled to a stop and we just stared at the store front while Jasper hopped out, yawning and stretching his arms over his head. His hair was standing up in odd places and he had this huge grin on his face as he stepped in front of the van. He pointed and waved his arm over his head like a lasso, which Edward correctly took to mean he should drive around back. As Edward pulled to a stop along some trash cans, Jasper came jogging up. Edward rolled down the window and I saw that we were in an alley behind some crackhouse poorly disguised as Demetri's Pizzeria. Jasper was talking to Edward who had Alice's head on his shoulder, her legs stretched so her feet were in my lap.

"It's my Uncle Demitri's place," Jasper said. "He's a fugitive in like, seven states. He won't turn me in."

"You don't have any uncles," Edward said, narrowing his eyes.

"Demitri is everyone's uncle."

"What does that even mean?" I asked, itching in my seat. We'd been idle for five minutes too long already.

"It means shut your face and let me take care of you," Jasper said sweetly, making a kissy face at me before turning away and disappearing behind a rusty, steel door.

"I'm getting hepatitis just sitting here," I said, craning my neck to look out the windshield for a dead hooker or a hypodermic needle in the alley. "There could be like, gang members or rapists or whatever just lurking—"

"Bella?"

"What?"

"_We're_ the fugitives in the alley right now," Edward said.

"Huh," I mused. I supposed we were. Funny. "What the hell do you think he's doing in there?"

"Hopefully getting money," Edward said, yawning and stretching his arm across the seat. "I really don't wanna get into scamming on poker games."

"What do you think, Little Alice?" I asked, poking the arch of her bare foot. But she said nothing, as she hadn't for days.

Edward looked down on her for a few seconds and I tried to count back in my head, to figure out how long Alice had gone without any of her pills. I couldn't be sure, but my guess was too damned long.

Edward turned up the radio and shifted his body so Alice kind of fell down his chest, her ear over his heart, the rest of her limp, but her eyes wide open.

In silence, we sat and listened to the opening notes of "Blue Moon" in the dark. Edward lit a cigarette and I stroked Alice's feet. I watched Edward's Adam's apple bob when he started to hum to the song, thick plumes of smoke billowing up around him, his fingers tapping the slow, lazy drum beat. When the song ended and segued into a Supremes song, he swept his hand through Alice's hair, running his fingers through the short spikes.

"It's hard to be head sick," he whispered to her and I watched, a frown pulling at my mouth, my chin threatening to tremble. Under the dim light of the dashboard clock, I saw the shimmer of Alice's tears slide over the bridge of her nose and onto Edward's shirt.

He glanced up at me and I stared back at him. This girl needed help and Edward knew that better than anyone. He also knew that sometimes, just because you get help, it doesn't make you better. And of course, I knew he'd been thinking of his mother just then.

Edward lifted Alice back up and pressed his lips to the top of her head, while she made no sound or no movement at all.

I put my face in the palms of my hands and waited for Jasper, who was another twenty minutes before he finally emerged with a thick manila envelope tucked under his arm. He hopped in the back, rolled the door shut, and pulled Alice back there with him.

"What's in the envelope?" Edward asked immediately, staring at Jasper in the rearview mirror.

"Information. Where to get in on a good game," Jasper replied, folding Alice into his lap, while she put her arms around his neck and her face in his throat.

"Fuck," Edward sighed.

"I believe you meant 'fuck yes,'" Jasper smoothly said.

"Jasper. Your girl is not—"

"She's fine. She's fucking perfect," Jasper insisted, and for the first time _ever_, I heard a note of desperation in Jasper Whitlock's voice.

"Jas."

"I said she's just fine."

"She isn't," Edward said.

"Hey Dr. Phil, either drive or move your perky ass over so I can drive," Jasper told him. Edward pulled the keys from the ignition, tossed them on the dash, and turned in his seat to stare at Jasper.

"She's fucking sad, okay? In a way that you or me or Bella have no clue about. Keeping her out here like this isn't fucking okay. It's like we're torturing her or something," Edward said.

"Don't worry about any of this," Jasper said, his hand sweeping over himself and Alice. "You worry about being on your game. You worry about your girl stroking out. You worry about your own crazy mom, but don't worry about this." At the words "crazy mom," my eyes darted nervously between Edward and Jasper. I mean, sometimes Jasper just went _too far_, and I was just realizing right now that Emmett was the one who mediated between the two of them.

"Are you really this crazy?" Edward asked softly, dangerously. He leaned toward Jasper now, who was leaning forward toward Edward. "You narcissistic fuck. If you've ever loved something more than yourself, now would be a great time to do something about it. If you care at all about this girl—"

"Don't fucking tell me what's up with Al. Cullen, you pompous cock. Don't dare presume to tell me shit about love or caring for other people— you ditched out on possibly knocked-up Bella and no one could help your crazy mother, so why the hell would you think you know dick about _this_?"

Edward could've overlooked the dig on our past. He could've overlooked one attack on his mother. But two attacks on his mother, the bitch slap comment about our past and all of the other stress of, oh, you know, _all of this_ was just enough to send him over the edge. Or rather send him over his seat.

He flew over the console and right on top of Jasper.

Alice was pressed up against the door, barely out the way of their flying fists. She stared wid- eyed, and then I stared wide-eyed.

It was supposed to be us against the world. This would never, ever work if it was us against us and jeez. Boys. They're so reactive.

I reached out and grabbed the back of Edward's shirt, pulling the bunched-up material as hard as I could until I was on my feet, leaning back with all of my weight, doing nothing but stretching his one clean shirt.

"Stop," I screamed over and over again.

If we got popped for a fist fight of all things… well. It'd just figure.

Jasper's fists pounded into Edward's sides; Edward, who was on his knees straddling Jasper, landed many punches of his own.

"Fucking _stop_ it," I pleaded, giving up on the pulling in favor of biting Edward on the back.

"What the fu- _oof_." He lost his breath when Jasper took advantage of the distraction and punched him in the kidney.

I bent over Edward and wrapped my arms around his chest, wedging hands in between the two of them. Their shirts were damp, their hearts pounding and still, they struggled against each other.

"Please, please stop because this really hurts," I said loudly, my arms starting to burn from hanging on to Edward's flailing body.

He pushed off of Jasper and backed up while I slid down his back. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and Jasper pushed on his lip with his thumb, where there was a smear of blood.

"That's great. That's just wonderful," I muttered, flopping into the driver's seat.

"Did you bite me?" Edward asked, his hand rubbing his back where I had, indeed, bit him. He joined me up front and started rummaging in the glove box for presumably more smokes.

"Act like an animal and I'll treat you like one," I said with a shrug. I grabbed the keys from the dash and popped them into the engine, for the first time appreciating its sad little wheeze when I turned the key. After about fifteen seconds of silence, I started in. "You two can't _do_ that. We can't fall apart like that. I get that it's stressful and I get that we're all really sick of staring at each other in a cramped van, but we can't turn on each other like this."

My impassioned lecture was interrupted by an open bottle of vodka being thrust into the front seat via Jasper's scratched-up, swollen hand. Still panting, Edward accepted the bottle and took a slow sip before handing it back to Jasper.

"Seriously?" I squawked, gaping at the two of them.

"Had to happen, Swan," Jasper panted. "It's men business. Too much testosterone, not enough van. Don't fret about it."

In the seventh grade, Jessica Stanley and I got into a verbal altercation involving a pink bathing suit. We didn't talk again until sophomore year, and still, it's never been quite the same. These two threw kidney punches and kneed each other's ball sacs and said really terrible, true things to each other… and then shared Smirnoff.

"Edward Cullen, I love you," Jasper said.

Edward reached his arm over his head and he and Jasper did some weird handshake and just like that, it was over.

"You guys are assholes. Unbelievable assholes," I muttered.

"I can't believe you bit me."

"Oh. _That_ you won't let go of?" I asked, incredulous.

"You _bit_ me."

"Wasn't aware of the rules of conduct," I mumbled. "Don't do that again. It scares me."

And I wasn't the only one freaked out by the scene. Behind us, Jasper was holding out a hand to Our Alice, who flinched and stayed tucked in her corner.

"I'm sorry, Alice," Edward said, his head lying back on the seat, eyes already closed.

Jasper leaned in close to her and started to whisper, but when I glanced in the rearview I saw her shaking all over, her eyes staring out past all of this.

xxxxxxx

I expected the basement of a strip club or the backroom of some Italian restaurant or I don't even know, anything else I've seen in a movie, I suppose. It was a house in an upper-middle class residential neighborhood just outside of Atlantic City. I mean, a lovely brick three story home with lush green sod, little solar-powered lights lining the lovely, cobblestone walk up to a porch that was really very lovely masonry work.

It felt like going to a friend's house and knowing you'll have to take your shoes off and feel like you're staining the couch just by sitting on it. I was suddenly very conscious of the state of my clothes and regretted how dirty my Vans had gotten.

According to the papers in Uncle Demetri's manila envelope, we were to park right in the driveway and knock twice using the brass knocker on the big oak door.

"Oh god. What if they pat us down?" I asked as we all appraised the house from the van.

"Are you packing heat or something?" Jasper asked. I suppose I had nothing to hide and gave a shrug.

Edward quickly counted the cash in his lap, making sure all the bills were aligned and face down.

"Listen, I'm going to go in and lose a hundred bucks," Jasper said. "Cullen loses a few hands, not down to our last penny, because hell, that's obvious. Throw two games, then get us rich, Beautiful."

Edward nodded and shoved some of the bills back at Jasper.

"What do me and Alice do?" I asked.

"Look nervous, which you're really good at."

"Shouldn't we play it cool?" I asked.

"No," Edward and Jasper said at the same time.

"Why?" I countered, but I was mostly relieved. I'm not so good at playing it cool.

"Because we're kids who are in over our heads, desperate for money and scared shitless of these guys. Don't let on for one second that we know we have a chance. Act like we need this, act like we're petrified of losing. Basically, don't act at all," Jasper said.

"Right. Got it."

"And Swan? Al? Flirt. Flirt like you'll spread 'em for anyone with cash. You're young, tight things. Any distraction for these limp dicks is good news for us. If they're watching you, they won't be watching Edward."

"What if they recognize us?" I asked, my stomach tumbling like Mary Lou Retton on her A game.

"They will," Edward said, leaning to the right to shove the folded bills in his back pocket. "These aren't rats. They don't turn people in. Besides, they're running an illegal poker game with a felonious amount of cash."

"Amen. I could walk in there and announce I just killed a man in Reno just to watch him die and no one in there would bat an eyelash. Don't sweat our fugitive status. Sweat getting caught. Hey. You up for this?" Jasper asked, turning to Edward.

"I kind of have to be, don't I?" Edward asked.

"You want us to leave so Swan can suck out your nerves real quick or something?" Jasper asked.

Edward cocked a half grin and I think he was seriously considering it for a minute.

"Forget it," I said, "I'm about to puke."

"Want me to do it?" Jasper asked, winking at Edward.

"If this goes to hell," Edward said, "I'm requesting you be shot first."

"Please, bitch. Everyone knows it's shoot first, questions later. You won't even have time to blink, much less make a request."

"Oh my god," I breathed, reaching behind me for Our Alice's hand, which was limp and clammy. She said nothing, not even a peaceful or inspiring "jasper."

We got out of the van. My lips felt cold, my knees were buzzing, my jaw shook with nerves and adrenaline, and I hoped they'd let me use their bathroom for which to heave my guts out.

Not Alice and Jasper stood in front of the door, Edward and I just behind them.

I swallowed into the tight feeling in my throat and prayed to just mentally check out. Just fuck it and do it, go through the motions and don't think.

"Couldn't think of a better way to go out, though. If it comes to that," Jasper said, looking over his shoulder at us, gazing each of us in the eye. "Outlaws. For the glory, kids."

Edward stared at his shoes, chewing the corner of his lips before looking up and cracking his neck by popping his chin to the left.

"I'm not dying at a fucking card game," Edward said. "Knock."

"There's my champion," Jasper said, smiling his maniacal smile. "Look sharp, Swan." He reached out and used the knocker to knock twice.


	18. Chapter 18

**wow, lots of new review-y faces for this story! it warms our cold, dead hearts when you guys pick up on the subtle hints we keep dropping throughout. Enjoy this one, and let us know what your i-talian mobsters playing poker music playlists would be. –j&w**

The front door opened revealing a middle-aged woman chewing on gum with gusto. She was wearing these cork wedge platform shoes, the kind you know are actually leftover from her heyday of 70s discotheques and weren't purchased ironically; the best, gaudiest damned leggings I'd ever seen (think AC Slater's workout pants on _Saved by the Bell _reruns); and a gold lamé top. She totally had jet black hair that you just _knew_ she got set every Friday, once a week, at a standing hair appointment. I could smell the acrylic on her nails from the threshold.

"Christ," she muttered in what may have been a Long Island accent, but then, it could've been Jersey, too. "Aro!" She bellowed this really impressive, nasally bray before sighing and beckoning us inside with her bejeweled sausage fingers.

"Yah just kids," she declared, looking us up and down before shutting the door behind us. Her jaw was really working that gum.

Of all the things we'd been prepared for, it hadn't been… this, so we kind of stood there in the velvet wallpapered foyer and waited for some kind of direction.

"Ma'am, we're here to see some gentlemen about—" Jasper started, using his respectful, talking-to-his-Grandmama voice, but he got cut off by the beastie right quick.

"Oh, I know whatcha here for, Tiger." She Jerseyed up that one- _Tie-gah_. She gave us each the old once-over in succession, starting with Jasper and ending with me, who she sort of grunted at. "Youse kids oughtta go back to school. Aro! Fuh Chrissakes!" she bellowed again.

"What?" demanded a gravelly smoker's too-loud voice, echoing from somewhere in the back of the house.

"Don't yell in the house!" she yelled back. "Yah got kids hee-yah!" She sighed and turned back to us, giving us the skeptical once-over again.

"Who knows what he does," she huffed. "You want some Ham-buh-gah Helpah and Pepsi?"

"No, thanks," Edward said pleasantly, and Jasper looked like he was seriously considering it.

"Well, _you're_ handsome enough," she said, pointing to Edward. "What's this ya got goin' on, Looks and Chahm?" She gestured back and forth between Edward and Jasper.

"No ma'am. We're just pretty hard up is all, as I'm sure you can imagine," Jasper told her. I fidgeted back and forth from right to left and Edward reached out, steadying me with a slight pressure from his hand on my back.

"Do I look stupid to you?" she asked Jasper, her eyes narrowing and her gum smacking.

"No ma'am."

"Honey, I married the original hustlah. I've got tree brothah-in-laws and twelve cousins, and they all been in the game since before youse were even born. I know a hustlah when I see one. And you, Ken doll, are a baby hustlah."

Jasper's shoulders dropped and he pointed a finger at her.

"You're a perceptive, Old World broad. I like that. What can I say, Ma'am? We came to win."

"Fine by me, kiddo," she said. "But if you got somethin' sneaky up yuh sleeve, you're gonna leave here with a bullet in your head." With that dire warning, the Carmela Soprano wannabe crossed her arms and glared at Jasper.

That was about when my cold sweat _really_ kicked in.

Jasper pushed both of his sleeves up and held his arms out, grinning widely at her.

"Nah. Nah. I meant the pretty one," she said, pointing a multi-colored two-inch curvy nail at Edward, who did that "who, me?" shrug. "Toldya I could spot 'em."

Oh, fuck us all. Called out before we even sat down.

I may have started to make an odd keening noise in the back of my throat, because I could kind of hear it and Edward yanked on my elbow in response.

"Do you have a bathroom she can use?" he asked.

"Sure (_shoo-uh_), Dreamboat. Down tru the hall, second door on the left. Hey, don't flush any tampons, and no hanky panky in there. I've got enough sin and very little redemption goin' on under this roof as it is," she said before made a quick signs-of-the-cross and muttering something about the Blessed Mother.

"Right. No tampons, no hanky panky," Edward said, ushering me down the hall already. Behind us, Jasper was inquiring about that Hamburger Helper, wondering if it was the Stroganoff or the Ultimate Cheeseburger variety.

The velvet wallpaper assaulted us all the way to the bathroom, sort of graduating into tacky velvet accented with flocked gold filigree. I let my fingertips graze over the wall, wondering just how difficult it was to get blood out of velvet.

"Stop making that noise," Edward whispered.

"It's my death song," I snapped back, and very suddenly, I had the urge to moan _Swing Low, Sweet Chariot_ while writhing around in the fetal position on the red shag carpet under my feet.

"Stop it," Edward said, opening the bathroom door.

"Coming for to carry me home," I replied.

"What." He rolled his eyes and pulled me in and shut the door behind me.

The countertops were jet black and gleaming. The cozy on the toilet lid was black and fuzzy. Like, not regular carpet fuzzy, but matching the shag carpet theme fuzzy. The room reeked of White Shoulders perfume and after a quick scan, I realized that Plan A wouldn't work. There were no windows in this bathroom for which to leap to uncertain safety.

Edward plunked me down on the black, fluffy toilet seat.

"They're going to kill us," I declared in a shout-whisper, allowing some hysteria to creep into my voice.

"Only if we cheat," he replied smoothly, kneeling between my legs and patting my hair.

"You're not going to, to count cards or whatever?" I asked.

"Can I?" he shot back. He took a deep breath and then ran a palm down his face. "I'm going to fucking kill Jasper."

"Well. Someone ought to," I muttered.

"Look. Worst case scenario- if I play straight, we lose the money. I'll bet half of what I planned, see how that goes, and make the call for the next round," he said, but I think he was more talking his plan out for himself than for my benefit.

"You mean you _might_ count?" I squawked, horrified. "They'll know it, and then I'll have to watch them shoot you! Oh, God. I bet they make you get on your knees. Are these the types to shoot from behind, or are they gonna make you look at them? Oh my God! What if they make me watch! Or what if they don't even shoot me after? What if they make me dig the hole for your body? Or watch your corpse be tossed in to a cement mixer? What if… what if…" I had to gulp to keep up with my own hysterical breathing. "What if they like, keep me to be their mafia princess slave and I'm forced to wear godawful, brassy gold jewelry and adopt that accent? Oh God. Oh my God! I'm going to be forced to drink gin and tonics and attend like, eight baptisms a month. I don't even know what a godmother actually does."

"Bella. What the hell is a mafia princess slave?"

"Edward, I just don't think my hair has the body to get that high, even with hair spray."

"Bella. Stop it. I meant I'll see how it goes."

"Well, how will I know when you decide if you'll count or not?"

"If I do it right, you won't," he told me. "Just be cool out there. And stop with the noises," he said, leaning over to grab some toilet paper on the roll next to us. He yanked out at least six squares and then stood to run them under the faucet for a second before running the soggy paper over my face.

I slapped his hands away and stood up.

"You need to calm down before you stroke out or get us shot," he said, tossing the wadded, nasty toilet paper into the waste basket. You'd think a gangster's wife wouldn't skimp on the good stuff.

"Do you know how long it would take me to dig a hole big enough for your dead body?" I snapped, fisting the front of his shirt with my shaking fingers.

Chest to chest now, he stared down at me while I stared up at him, my chin on his chest. Then he took both of his pointer fingers and stuck them at the corners of my mouth, pulling them upward so I smiled a weird, forced, The Joker smile.

"Get out there and be a demure flirt. Remind them that you're barely legal, because every old guy is into that shit. Smile, have a drink if offered, and seriously. Don't make that noise. You stick to your end and I'll handle mine. Team, remember?"

"Team."

"And Bella."

"Yeah?"

"I promised, remember? I promised we'd be okay."

"I…. yeah," I said softly before narrowing my eyes. "Yeah, you did. So you'd better pull through this, or I'm going to have to seriously re-evaluate our relationship. Boys who make empty promises aren't worth my time."

He grinned and kissed me, a big, smacking kiss right on the lips. Then he actually honked my left tit.

"For luck," he shrugged, turning to open the door.

Jasper, Not Alice, and our lovely hostess were still at the other end of the hallway. Edward put his heavy, loose arm around my neck and shuffled forward, cool as 90s Vanilla Ice.

"They play in the rec room in the basement," she was saying. "Just walk right on down."

_Of course in the basement. Of course_, I thought. Sounded about right. I mean, if you were going to shoot up a bunch of cheating teenagers, the ominous basement with nowhere to run would be the logical place to do it.

Jasper grinned up at Mrs. Soprano. He was holding a paper plate of brown slop and a Wild Cherry Pepsi and actually had a napkin tucked into his collar. Not Alice kind of leaned into his side, the plate hovering just over her head.

"Let's go play at cards, kids," Jasper said, and we filed down the carpeted stairs behind him, a thick haze of cigar and cigarette smoke eating us up when we were about halfway down the staircase.

Well. There was just no way to get out of this now, and my subconscious must've finally caught on to that, because all I could do was just keep moving forward, numb to my firework nerves.

I thought of what Edward had said, days before, about how _I _made these decisions, and well. Here I was, making this decision, too. I _chose_ to hop into that van. I _chose_ to keep running when I found out that Emmett had been stealing. I stole pharmaceuticals, and I chose to partake in the beat-down and subsequent arrest of Royce King. I chose to be here, when I knew all along that I could've stayed in the van or freaked out to the point that Edward would've driven me somewhere else, somewhere far, far away. But I kept choosing this. And it was time I owned it. I couldn't be the weak link here. I couldn't let my family down like that. The stakes were way too high, and I loved them way too much.

"Let's make Emmett proud," Jasper said softly when we all reached the bottom of the stairs.

Emmett would've loved this shit. I wondered if I could get away with writing him a letter to tell him all about it.

And so I decided that we had to make it out of here unscathed, because I couldn't _not_ tell Emmett about this. He may have been gone, but he was still a big, huge, important chunk of us, and we couldn't leave him out of it.

"I'll write him a letter," I mumbled.

"Right. You do that," Jasper said, brushing past me and Edward, sweeping Our Alice along with him.

We turned a corner, Jasper and the Alice leading us and there they were, four gentlemen gathered around a hexagonal, green-felted table. There were framed pictures of Norma Jean Baker's Playboy spread on the walls and a bar tucked into the corner. The table itself looked old and heavy, the carved wood gleaming in the bright light of the overhead lamp/fan combo. Colored poker chips in various-sized stacks neatly littered the table; a deck of cards, still in the box, sat near the elbow of an older portly fellow with a four strand comb over and a belly that looked tight and downright painful. He had a bright red bulbous nose and a signet-type pinkie ring.

It was the most clichéd thing I'd ever seen in my life.

Behind the bar was a tall, lanky, older gentleman who was wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater, complete with suede elbow patches. His salt and pepper hair was slicked back and he smiled like the grim freaking reaper when he looked up at us. He was screwing the cap onto a bottle of Jim Beam as he leered; without breaking eye contact with me, he picked up his low ball and swished the liquid around, the ice cubes tinkling in response. He made his way over to the table, still smiling that Reaper smile as he took his seat.

Opposite of him was a guy who looked exactly what you think a high school algebra teacher reaching tenure looks like. Enough said.

Lastly, there was a guy who appeared to be about, oh, a hundred and twelve years old. Seriously. He was about eighty-two pounds, shaking all over, and had the thinnest white hair I've ever seen. Next to him was a walker with tennis balls on the ends of the legs, but in front of him was a high ball three-quarters full of amber-colored booze and in his shaking hand was a long, slim cigarette.

He just looked so damned small and frail, and possibly senile. It was disgusting, almost, these men taking advantage of this poor little old guy, who couldn't have retained all of his mental faculties. I felt defensive, ready to scold these dirtbags for probably stealing away this guy's pension—

"'Ey, you with the tits. C'mere and sit next to ole Uncle Paulie."

And he said that to me, while patting his knee emphatically.

The weird noise I'd been making came back, briefly, before Jasper shoved me in the direction of the old pervert. "Oh, awesome," I said, stumbling forward from Jasper's shove. I turned briefly and saw Edward biting the inside of his cheek, trying not to laugh. Jasper waved his hand, shooing me along with a wide-eyed expression. I couldn't think of a subtle way to make clear that while I was willing to take a lot for the team, I would under no circumstances be taking liver-spotted ball sac for the team.

Nevertheless, I made my way over there and kind of leaned on the guy's walker, looking down at the tennis balls as they scrunched around with the motion. _Wilson_. Excellent.

"Well, Hello, _Dolly_," he said, leering at me through his glaucoma.

"Hi," I said back.

"All of youse sit," said the guy with the gut, who must've been Aro. He and his moll had the same taste in gaudy as his track jacket was electric purple with a double yellow stripe down each arm. Was it like, a Lakers jacket from the 80s? "My house, my game. You kids know what you're doing?"

"Yessir," Jasper said, taking a seat next to Teach.

Edward sat opposite of Jasper, right next to the Grim Reaper.

"Good. Deuce to seven, triple draw," Aro said, picking up the deck of cards. He made a show of turning it around, the cellophane packaging crinkling in his fat hand. He unwrapped it, holding his hand over his head and dropping the opened wrapper. His wife showed up out of nowhere, rushing in and grabbing it. She exited as quickly as she entered.

Aro pulled the cards out of the box and did away with the instructions and the joker; he started shuffling lazily, flicking his wrist as he pulled some cards out and shuffled 'em right back in. He was looking intently and insolently into Edward's face.

"That all right wit' you?"

I watched Edward's eyes blink twice and his lips flinched ever, ever so slightly.

_Oh dear_.

"Fair enough," he muttered, nodding his head once.

I know a little bit about poker. Not much, but enough from school boys and Charlie's buddies to know that five-card stud would've been our best bet. The problem with deuce to triple is that there are no community cards. It's a game of higher concentration, and reading bluffs is a total bitch because of this. There was no doubt Aro chose this game for this very reason. He wanted to win, but more than that, he didn't trust these boys to play straight.

Grim Reaper looked over his shoulder at Not Alice.

"Can't stand there, babydoll," he said, looking her up and down. "You can have my knee, though."

Not Alice kind of just limply stood there, not worried, not nervous, not rudely. More like… just not. Not there.

"Cat got your legs and tongue?" Reaper asked her, chuckling. He licked his pinkies simultaneously and used them to smooth down the hair over his ears. _Gross_.

"She doesn't talk," Jasper said, staring the guy right in the eye. "Ever."

"Read about that in the paper," Reaper said, and that's when I felt a pruned-up finger on the back of my thigh. "She'd be a great poker player. Come sit with me, Pussy Cat." He beckoned to Not Alice. Jasper looked between the two of them before making the call.

"She doesn't sit, either," he said.

Edward looked up at Jasper with a downright murderous glare.

"This your girl, then?" Reaper asked, turning in Jasper's direction. At least he wasn't looking at Our Alice anymore, and maybe that was Jasper's intention, but I didn't think Jasper was thinking too clearly at that particular moment. In fact, I'd never seen him look so outwardly calm. Only his eyes betrayed his anger. It was unsettling.

"That's right."

For all the flirt-like-hell talk Jasper spat at us, he sure wasn't handling this well. He'd always been too emotional, too intense and too passionate, but now wasn't the time to let him wear it on his sleeve. We needed a distraction and that's what I was there for, so I leaned in next to the living artifact and rested my arm around his neck. He smelled like Brut, which reminded me of Charlie, and you'd think that would be comforting, but it just wasn't. Probably because Charlie never once undressed me with his eyes, what with being my father and all.

The pruney finger was making its way to my inner thigh, and good Old Uncle Paulie was grinning, shaking, and smoking away. I reached behind and smacked his hand, then pointed my finger at him.

"Show me you can win first," I commanded. The table went up in howls and Edward raised his eyebrows at me. I just shrugged and got comfy next to my archaeological find.

Aro harrumphed and all attention turned back to him. He stopped his lazy shuffling and in a neat bit of showmanship flipped the cards around in one hand, fanning them and doing other neat-o tricks that impressed the hell out of me when I was a kid and was doing the job now, as well. Finally bringing them to a neat stack, he knocked on the deck twice and then offered the cards to Edward, studying his face closely. Never breaking eye contact with Aro, Edward accepted the cards, cut them twice and picked them up, also knocking twice. Man, card players. What is that, anyway?

I watched, mesmerized by Edward's long fingers making sport with the deck. He was every bit as agile as Aro had been with the cool card tricks, and I thought for a second that he had given away the farm by showing this table full of old hoods how good he was, but I un-tensed when I remembered that Edward rarely does anything spontaneous when it comes to stuff like this. Every move he ever made was calculated, so he was probably making some sort of statement like, "Don't mess" or "I don't eff around" or whatever. Something like that. Anyway, Edward's hands danced with those cards, shuffling, bridging, re-shuffling. It was a pretty neat trick, and I wondered just how he'd managed to become a card shark during the tenure of his high school career.

"Gentlemen, place your bets," Edward said, nodding to the center of the table.

I'm not sure which colored chips represented how much money, but fuck. It seemed like an awful lot of scratch to me as the table grew silent, the occasional thunk and click of chips being flicked into the center the only sound in the room. Far away, I heard some Connie Francis (I mean, could it be any more clichéd up in here?) wafting from upstairs.

"You kids know what's at stake here?" Aro asked, glancing around the table in turn at Edward, Jasper, and then me. He ignored Not Alice completely.

"Yessir," Jasper answered, leaning back in his chair, running his tongue over his front teeth.

"You understand what happens if you sit down with gentlemen and don't play by the rules of the game?" Aro asked, his finger punching the green felt of the table in front of him with each syllable uttered.

"I'd wager we wouldn't be standing up again," Jasper shrugged. "We're men. We don't cheat." And with that, the game was on.

The hand was dealt, and the room remained silent, cards being discarded at what seemed like random to me, the participators subtly but intensely studying each other, Old Paulie's wheezing getting louder and louder with each pass of his finger over my thigh.

Edward remained focused on the game; I didn't know if he could tell what was happening with my geriatric friend or not but if he did, he didn't show it, which was good. I could handle my end and he trusted me to do so.

I thought I knew poker well enough, but as it turns out and is so often the case, I was wrong. Cards were tossed in a two-fingered flick, checks landed in the ever-increasing pile, really disgusting curses were uttered. I had no idea what was going on and therefore could not tell if we were doing well or not.

As it turned out, not so much.

"Fuck," Edward muttered when he lost the first hand. I tried to discern whether his frustration was for show, but I'm pretty sure his "fuck" was sincere.

"Let's have the cash, kid," Reaper said with glee. He'd won the hand. "You _do_ have the cash?" I hated how his voice lingered on the word.

Edward said nothing but reached in his pocket and tossed some folded bills over to the Reaper, who promptly counted his winnings.

"Okay, kids. You've had your fun. Go on, get outta here. Go do more of that innocent baby crime we've been seeing so much of on the television," Aro muttered. He didn't look up as he gathered the cards and began re-shuffling.

"You gotta give us a chance to win our cash back," Jasper said, his voice betraying no emotion.

"You're gonna walk out of here with nothing," Aro replied, a soft warning in his tone.

"Aw, hell. Let the kids stay," ole Paulie grouched.

"Just looking out for them," Aro said, shaking his head.

"We'll stay," Jasper countered, his eyes flicking briefly to Edward, and I couldn't ascertain whether he'd try and count this round or not. "That was just a warm up."

"A five hundred dollar warm up," Aro laughed, mocking, shaking his head. Five hundred? My heart sped up and I wondered whether a lifetime of eating poorly and this moment would lead me to cardiac arrest at the tender age of eighteen.

"Deal the cards," Jasper said tiredly.

Now, I don't know if anyone else would've noticed it- I mean, who stared at Edward like I did? Who would notice the tiny little nuances that I would? No one, I hoped, because the set of his shoulders, the determination in his eyes and the slight tick of his jaw to the left indicated one thing: His game was about to change.

He was going to count those fucking cards.

It just meant I'd have to step up my game, too.

It was hard enough to concentrate on deuce to seven, so I really wasn't surprised when our hosts struck up a conversation, no doubt a tactic to distract Edward and Jasper from the game being played. I wondered if they were aware that my boys were playing their own game.

"What the hell are you kids up to, anyway? You ever plan to turn yourselves in?" the algebra teacher asked, picking up his cards as Reaper dealt them.

"We find it best not to talk shop with outsiders," Jasper said, studying his own cards.

"Fair enough. I can respect a guy who won't run his mouth," Teach said, then he glanced over at Edward. "Of course, _too_ quiet is always reason for suspicion."

Edward looked up and stared back, his face a mask of complete and utter nothingness.

"You're smart enough not to bullshit a bullshitter, right, kid?" Teach asked.

Without looking away, Edward discarded and leaned back in his chair.

Reaper chuckled from his seat and lit a cigarette as pruned fingers shook at my hip.

"Pick a card for Grandpa," he told me.

"Oh. I thought it was 'Uncle', and anyway, I don't know how to—"

"I don't give a good goddamn about the game. Just bend over and pick a card, Perky," he grouched at me.

Jasper grinned, Edward remained stoic, and I pointed to his Queen of Hearts. I was beginning to see that I really had zero clue about the rules of this game. He caught my wrist in his cold, boney fingers before I could pull my hand back.

"I'll give you two hundred bucks to let me look at ya without pants on," he said, and up close, I noticed he had two gold teeth and white nose hair.

"I'm a lady," I said, pouting for effect and hoping that would serve as a good distraction. It worked, because everyone but Edward was looking at me with varying degrees of smile on their faces.

"I've had the erectile dysfunction since 1972, sweetheart. I'm harmless. C'mon and give an old man a thrill. "

"Paulie, how many times do I gotta tell ya- play cards or chase tail, ya old cooch hound," Aro said, good-naturedly.

Gramps wheezed out a laugh and rubbed my elbow with his gnarled, arthritic knuckle.

Reaper folded and got up from his seat, refreshing his drink while the chips continued to clink. Once he was properly Jim Beamed, he started circling Not Alice, who was so non-responsive, it was starting to really kind of freak me out.

"Mind the girl's personal space," Jasper said without even looking behind him to see the non-interaction between Not Alice and Reaper.

Edward's jaw tensed and I shifted on Grampy's knee. He got all excited and I felt his wayward prune finger start to creep again.

"Oh? That right, Pee Wee?" Reaper asked.

Edward's shoulders rolled; Aro and Teach kept on with their heads in the game and Gramps palmed my knee, his cards between his thumb and forefinger.

"Yeah, that's right. We came for cards, not a Matures Swinger party." Reaper was slowly inching away from Alice and toward the table.

"Nice idea, kid, but do you think," Reaper asked, putting both of his hands on Jasper's shoulders, "you can walk into someone else's home and play by your own rules?"

Teach folded.

Gramps found my inner thigh again and I clamped my legs so tightly that he'd lose what little circulation he still had.

"My girl, my rules," Jasper said lightly, but his cards were now on the table and his chin was tipped down, his eyes closed. Was I the only one feeling the escalating tension in the room? Aro had his cigarette between his lips and was puffing smoke out the side of his mouth, intently staring at his cards; Teach was leaning so far back in his chair that I thought he'd tip over and I mentally chided him for violating the six-legs-at-all-times chair rule. I mean, he was probably a teacher and really ought to know. He was precariously balanced on the two back legs and was staring at the ceiling, watching the fan slowly spin the drifting smoke in lazy wisps and whirls.

My gaze snapped to Edward, who was staring at the pile of cards already on the table, then looking back at his own hand, no doubt trying to determine Aro's hand.

Edward slid another stack of chips to the center of the table.

"Bullshit, kid," Aro muttered, but Edward only looked up, confirming his move with a small smile.

Aro rubbed his chin and contemplated his next move before sliding his own stack of chips to the center of the table.

Reaper leaned down, his lips grossly close to Jasper's ear. I couldn't tell if he was whispering in it or not, but then I got distracted when Grandpa threw his cards down in disgust. Edward had flipped his cards over in a neat fan right in front of him.

"Holy shit," Edward whispered hoarsely, his chest collapsing when he breathed out a slow, long breath. "I won."

Aro looked up from all the face-up cards, glancing at Edward, his head cocking to the side.

"Congrats, kid," Aro said softly, dangerously, his face guarded, still staring too hard.

The table went quiet for about half a second. Then I realized that Reaper was, in fact, saying things. Only this time, _everyone_ could hear them.

"It's not like she can tell anyone. It's not like she would even open her mouth to say no," Reaper said into Jaspers' ear. "She can't. Even. Say. No."

And that's when the palms of Jasper's hands upended the entire table.


End file.
